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y ’ .

THB MAqAZINt OP

Project Nursemaid Qshort novel)

by JUDITH MERRIL

^ ' .

Dywyk

by DORIS P. BUCK

By a Fluke

by ARTHUR FORGES

Uncle Phil on TV

by J. B. PRIESTLEY

Recommended Reading {a department)

by ANTHONY BOUCHER

101

The Cricket Ball

by A VRO MANHATTAN

104

The Talking StonS

by ISAAC ASIMOV

107

An Appointment for Candlemas

by ROBERT GRAVES

114

** Coming Next Month'' appears on

page 12^

COVER PAINTING BY MEL HUNTER

Joseph W, Fermarit publisher Anthony Boucher^ editor

The Magazine of Fantasy, and Science Fiction^ Volume 9, No. 4, Whole No. 53, OCT., 1955. Published
monthly by Fantasy House, Inc., at 35^ a copy. Annual subscription, $4.00. in U. S. and Possessions; $5.00
in all other countries. Publication office. Concord, N. H. General offices, 471 Parff^ Avenue, New Yorf^ 22,
N. Y. Editorial office, 2643 Dana St., Berkeley 4, Calif. Entered as second cldss matter at the Post Office at
Concord, N. H. under the Act of March 3, 1879. Printed in U. S. A. Cop^ght, 1955, by Fantasy House
■Inc. All rights, including translation into other languages, resertied> Submissions must be accompanied by
stamped, self-addressed envelopes; the Publisher assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicited manuscripts,

J. Francis McComas, advisory editor; Robert P. Mills, managing editor; George Salter, art director;
'Howard K. Pruyn, production manager; Charles Angoff, associate editor; Gloria Levitas, assistant

editor; Constance Di Rienzo, editorial secretary

EXCITING MYSTERY READING

«< ■ (« • (« ■ «( • «< • «< • «( »

TOO LOVELY TO LIVE

(formerly "Miscast for Murder")

by Ruth Fenisong

Bess Culhane had to see her father. She
didn’t know about the once-lovely woman
lying on his hotel bed, her dark hair
matted with blood. . . neatly plotted
. . .” the Boston Globe.

A BESTSELLER MYSTERY

LUST TO KILL

(formerly "A Fish for Murder")

by Edward Lee

Red Blake knew that the scantily clad
women and the humming roulette
wheels held the threat of sudden
death for him — by a murderer
whose blood lust bore the mark of
madness . "... ^eedy and violent
...” Saturday Review.

A JONATHAN PRESS MYSTERY

T'op-Flight Stories in

ELLERY QUEEN^S
MYSTERY MAGAZINE

Here are the beat stories of practically all
the modern masters, plus the little known
mystery masterpieces of world-famous lit-
erary figures. Only Ellery Queen, owner of
the world’s finest library of crime fiction,
could bring you such gems every month!
35^ a copy. $4.00 a year.

these K^Magazines, too

The Magazine of
FMtTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

Here are outstanding stories, new and
old, for people with imagination . . . spar-
kling tales of strange new worlds and
peoples. F&SF is edited by famed author-
editor Anthony Boucher. 35^ a copy. By
subscription, $4.00 a year. Published
monthly.

««« • <« • <«««« • «< ■ « <■ «< ■ «< - «< ■ c<c - c« >

Mercury Publications, ,471 Park Avenue, N. Y,

MORE THAN SO MILLION BOOKS ANO MAGAZINES SOLD TO ENTHUSIASTIC READERS

Af the time that you read thiSy science fiction has just received as important
a distinction as has ever been bestowed upon it by a critic of mainstream
literature: Martha Foley* s the best American short stories 1955
(^Houghton Mifflin), which appears almost simultaneously mth this issue,
contains Judith Merril* s Dead Center (^F&SF, November, lyj/). Miss
Foley, most eminent of judges of today* s short story, has occasionally in-
eluded s.f, in her annuals before, but always from ** slick,** ** polity* or
** little magazine** sources; she has fre^untly cited sf, (^particularly , Tm
pleased to say, from F&SF) in her lists of ‘ * Distinctive Short Stories* * and
** Distinctive Volumes of Short Stories**; and now at last she grants full
recognition to a story from a popular, ** pulp** s.f, magazine. It* s not sur-
prising that the first author to attain this critical Mach i is Judith Merrily
** I, am,'*. Foley has written, “ in quest of literary adventure. When 1 feel
that I have had an adventure in reading a story, when I think reading it
has been a memorable experience, I hope that the readers of this volume also
will find it memorable.** For it is this quality of memorability — deriving
from personal emotional impact in writing of the people of the future rather
than the things or theories — that has marked Merril* s fiction, from her
striking debut-story That Only a Mother (Astounding, June, .1^48')
through her novel shadow on the hearth (JDoubleday, 19s on to Dead
Center ... and to Project Nursemaid. The longest Merril story in five
years, this short novel tells of a Project, yes — a fascinatingly detailed
attempt to adjust the human race to low- and null-gravity; but primarily
it is a story of people, and a tender and memorable one.

Troje£t ’TJursemaid

by JUDITH MERRIL

The GIRL IN THE waiting ROOM WAS to iclax. It was an interview, noth-
very young, and very ill at ease, ing more. If they asked too many
She closed the magazine in her lap, questions or if anything happened
which she had not been reading, knd that looked like trouble, she could
leaned back in the chair, determined just leave and not come back.

And then what • • • ?

They wouldn’t, anyhow. The
nurse had told her. She didn’t even
have to give her right name. It
didn’t matter^ And they wouldn’t
check up. All they cared about was
if you could pass the physical.

That’s what the nurse had said,
but she didn’t li^e the nurse, d[nd
she wished now that she had bought
a wedding ring after all. Thirty-nine
cents in the five-and-ten, and she
had stood there looking at them,
and gone away again. Partly it was
knowing the salesgirl would think
she was going to use it for a hotel,
or something like that. Mostly, it
was just — wrong, A ring on your
finger was supposed to mean some-
thing, even for 39 cents. If she had
to he with words, she could, but not
with . . . That was silly. She should
have bought it. Only what a ring
meant was one thing, and what
Charlie had meant was something
else.

Everybody's got to learn their lesson
sooner or later y honey y the nurse had
said.

But it wastit lik? thaty she wanted
to say. Only it was. It was for Char-
he, so what difference did it make
what she thought?

She should have bought the ring.
It was silly not to.

“I still say, it’s a hell of a way to
run an Arniy.”

“You could even be jight,” said
the Colonel, and both of them
smiled. Two men who find them-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

selves jointly responsible for a vi-
tally important bit of insanity, who
share a strong, if reluctant, mutual
respect for each other’s abilities, and
who disagree with each other about
almost everything, will find them-
selves smiling frequently, he had
discovered.

The General, who was also a pol-
itician, stopped smiling and added,
“Besides which, it’s downright im-
moral! These girls — l^dsl You’d
think . . .”

The Colonel, who was also a psy-
chologist, stopped smiling too. The
General had a daughter very much
the same age as the one who was
waiting outside right now.

“It’s one hell of a way to run an
Army.”

The Colonel nodded. His concept
of morality did hot coincide pre-
cisely with the General’s, but his
disapproval was not one whit less
vehement. He had already expressed
his views in a paper rather dra-
matically entitled “Brave New
World???” which dealt with the
predictable results of regimentation
in prenatal and infantile condition-
ing. The manuscript, neatly typed,
occupied the rearmost position in a
folder of personal correspondence in
his bottom desk drawer, and he had
no more intention of expressing his
views now to the General than he
had of submitting the paper for
^ publication. He had discovered re-
cently that he could disapprove of
everything he was doing, and still
desire to defend his right to do it;

PROJECT NURSEMAID

beyond doubt, it was better than
supervising psych checks at some
more conventional recruiting depot.

“A hell of a way,” he agreed, with
sincerity, and glanced meaningfully
at his appointment pad.

Thursday was apparently net the
General’s day for accepting hints
gracefully from junior officers; he
sat down in the visitor’s chair, and
glared. Then he si^ed.

‘‘AH right, so it’s still the way we
have t© run it. Nobody asked you.
Nobody asked me. And I’ll say this^
Tom, in all fairness, you’ve done a
fine job on one end of it. We’re
getting the babies, and we’re de-
livering them too . .

“That’s more your work than
mine, Hal,” the Colonel lyingly de-
murred.

“Teamwork,” the General cor-
rected. “Not yours or mine, but
both of us giving it everything we’ve
got. But on this other business, now,
Tom — ” His finger tapped a repri-
mand on the sheaf of papers under
his hand. “ — Well, what comes first,
Tom, the chicken or the egg? All
eggs and no hens, it just won’t work.”

The General stopped to chuckle,
and the Colonel followed suit.

“The thing is, now we’ve got the
bastards — and I mean no disrespect
to my uniform. Colonel, I’m using
that word literally — now we’ve
got ’em, what’re we going to do with
’em?”

His fingers continued to tap on the
pile of reports, not impatiently, but
with emphasis.

“I don’t say it’s your fault, Yom,
you’ve done fine on the other ciad!,
but if you’re going to bounce every-
body who can pass the physicals,
and if everyone who gets by you is
going to get blacked out by the
medics, well — I don’t know, maybe
the specs were set too high. Maybe
you’ve got to — well, I don’t want
to tell you how to do your jcrf>j
Tom. I don’t kid myself about that;
I know I couldn’t fill your shoes if
I tried. All I can do is put it squarely
up to you. You’ve got the figures
there in front of you. Cold figures^,
and you know what they mean.”

He stopped tapping long enough
to shove a neatly typed sheet, an
inch closer to the other man. Neither
of them looked at the sheet; both
of them knew the figures by heart.

“Out of three hundred and thirty-
six applicants so far, we’ve accepted
thirty-eight. We’ve had twenty-one
successful Sections to date,” the
General intoned. “And six of those
have been successfully transported
to Moon Base. Three have already
come to term, and been delivered,
healthy and whole and apparently
in good shape all around.

“Out of one hundred and ninety-
six applicants, we have so far ac-
cepted exactly three — one, two,
three — foster parents. Only one of
those is on the Base now. She’s been
on active duty since the first deliv-
ery — that was August 22, if I re-
member right, and that makes
twenty-five days today that she’s
been on without relief.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Mrs, Kemp left on the rocket
this morning. She’ll be on Base —
let’s see — ” He shuffledf rocket
schedules and Satellite- Moon Base
shuttles in his mind. “ — Wednes-
day, day after tomorrow. Which
makes twtnty 'seven days for Lenox.
If Kemp’s willing to walk in and
take over on a strange job, Lenox
can take a regular single leave at
that point; more likely she’ll have to
wait for the next shuttle — thirty-
one days on duty, Tom, and most of
it carrying full responsibility alone.
And thafs not counting the two
days she was there before, the first
delivery, which adds up to — let’s
see — thirty- three altogether, isn’t
it?”

The Colonel nodded soberly. It
was hard to remember that the
General happened to be right, and
that the figures he was quoting
were meaningful, in terms of human
beings. Carefully, he lowered men-
tal blinds, and ^managed to keep
track of the recital without having
to hear it all. He knew the figures,
and he knew the situation was
serious. He knew it a good deal bet-
ter than the General did, because
he knew the people as well as how
many there were ... or weren’t.

More women on more rockets
would make the tally-sheet look
better, but it wouldn’t provide bet-
ter care for the babies; not unless
they were the right women. He
waited patiently for a break in the
flow of arithmetic, and tried to get
this point across. “I was thinking,”

he began. “On this leave problem —
couldn’t we use some of the Army
nurses for relief duty, till we catch
up with ourselves? That would take
some of the pressure off and I’d a
lot rather have the kids in the care
of somebody we didn’t know for a
few days than send up extra people
on one-year contracts when we do
know they’re not adequate.”

“It’s a last resort, Tom. That’s
just what I’m trying to avoid. I’m
hoping we wont haye to do that,”
the General said ominously. “Right
now, this problem is in our laps,
and nobody else’s. If we start asking
for help from the Base staff, and
get their schedules fouled up — I tell
you, Tom, we’ll have all the top
brass there is down on us.”

“Of course,” he said. “I wasn’t
thinking of that angle . . .” But he
let it go. No sense trying to make
any point against the Supreme Ar-
gument.

“Well, that’s my job, not yours,
worrying about things like that,”
the General said jovially. But all
the time, one finger, as if with an
independent metronomic existence
of its own, kept tapping the pile of
psych reports. “But you know as
well as I do, we’ve got to start show-
ing better results. I’ve talked to
the Medics, and I’m talking to you.
Maybe you ought to get together
and figure how to . . .

“No, I said I wouldn’t tell you
how to do your job, and I won’t.
But we’ve got to have somebody
on that December 8 rocket. That’s

PROJECT NURSEMAID

the outside limit, and it means
you’ve got three weeks to find her.
If nobody comes up, I don’t think
we’ll have any choice but to recon-
sider some of the rejects, and see if
we can settle on somebody between
us.”

The General stood up; so did the
Colonel. “I won’t Jceep you any
longer, Tom. I believe there’s a
young — lady? — outside waiting
for you.” He shook his head. ‘'It’s
good thing 1 don’t have to talk to
them,” the General said feelingly.

The Colonel, again, agreed.

They both smiled.

The intercom phone on the Wac’s
desk buzzed. The girl sat up straight,
watching. The Wac picked up the
receiver and listened and said crisply,
“Yes, sir,” and hung up and pushed
back her chair and went through
the door behind the desk, into the
Colonel’s office.

The girl watched, and when the
door closed, her eyes moved to the
wall mirror over the long table on
the opposite wall, and she wondered,
if she would ever in her life achieve
the kind of groomed smartness the
Wac had. She was pretty; she knew
-that without looking in the mirror.
But it seemed to her that she was
bulky and shapeless and unformed.
Her hair was soft and cloudy-brown-
ish, where the Wac’s was shiningly
coifed and determinate in color;
and where the Wac was trim and
tailored,, the contours of her own
body, ugder the powder-blue suit,

were fluid and vaguely indistinct.

It's just a matter of getting older ^
she thought, and she wondered what
the Wac would do in the spot she
was in. But it wouldn’t happen.
A woman hke that wouldn’t let it

happen. Anybody who could keep
each hair in place that way could
keep a hold on her emotions, too;
or at least make sure it was safe,
ahead of time.

The door opened, and the Wac
smiled at her. “You can go in now,
Mrs. Barton,” she said, a little too
kindly.

She hnowsl The girl could feel the
heat flame in her cheeks. Of course!
Everybody here would know what
was the matter with the girls who
went in to see Colonel Edgerly. She
walked stiffly past the other woman,
without looking at her.

“Mrs. Barton?” The Colonel stood
up, greeting her. He was too young.
Much too young. She could never
talk to him about — there was noth-
ing to talk about. She didn’t have
to tell him about anything. Only
he should have been older, and not
so nice-looking.

He pulled up a chair for her, and
went through all the ordinary ges-
tures of courtesy, getting her settled.
He was wearing a Colonel’s uniform
all right, but he didn’t look like one,
and he didn’t act like one. He took
a pack of cigarettes out of his desk
drawer, offered her one, and lit it
for her. All that time, she didn’t
have to say anything; and by then,
she was able to talk.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

The applicationiorm was a neces-
sary formality. He wrote down the
name and address she gave, and a
little xloubtfully, after age, nine-
teen, She surprised him by claiming
student as her occupation, instead of
the conventional housewife^ but ev-
erything else went, according to
expectations. She had had measles
and mumps, but no chicken pox or
scarlet fever or whooping cough.
No operations, no previous preg-
nancies, no congenital conditions.
He checked down the list rapidly,
indifferently. When she’d had her
physical, they’d know the accurate
answers to all these things. Mean-
time, the girl was answering familiar
questions that she had ahswered a
hundred times before, in less fright-
ening placds, and they were getting
near the bottom of the sheet.

He looked over at her, smiling a
little, frowning a little, and his
voice was apologetic with the first
personal, and pertinent, question.
“Have you had a medical examina-
tion yet?’’

“No, they said the interview was
first . . . Oh! You mean for . . . ?
Yes. Yes, of course

“Do you know how far along you
are?” His eyes were on the form,
and he scribbled as he talked.

She took a deep breath. “Eleven
weeks,” she said. “The doctor said
last week it was ten, so — - so I guess
it’s eleven now,” she finished weakly.

* ‘Do you think your husband would
be willing to come down for a phys-
ical? We like to get records oti both

parents if we can . . .” There was
no answer. He looked up, and she
was shaking her head; her face was
white, and she wasn’^t breathing at
all.

“You’re quite sure?” he said po-
litely. “It’s not necessary; but it
does work to the advantage of the
child, if we have as much informa-
tion as possible.”

“I’m sorry,” she said tightly.
‘‘He — ” She paused, and made up
her mind. “He doesn’t know about
it. We’re both still in school. Co-
lonel. If I told him, he’d think he
had to quit, and start working. I
can’t tell him.”

It sounded like the truth, almost,
but her face was too stiffly composed,
and the pulse in her temple beat
visibly against the pale mask. Her
words were too precise, when her
breath was coming so quickly. She
wasn’t used to lying.

“You realize that what you’re
doing here is a real and important
contribution, Mrs. Barton? Don’t
you think he might see it that way?
Maybe if I talked to him . . . ?”

She shook her head again. “No.
If it’s that important, I guess I
better ...” The voice trailed off,
almost out of control, and her lips
stayed open a little, her eyes wide,
frightened, not knowing what the
end of that sentence could possibly
be. .

The Colonel pushed the printed
sheet* away from him, and looked
at her intently. It was time for the
last question.

PROJECT NURSEMAID

“Mrs. Barton — What do people
call you, anyway? Cecille? Cissy?
Ceil? Do you mind. . . ?”

“No, that’s all right. Ceil.” It
was a very small smile, but she was
obviously more comfortable.

“All right. Ceil. Now look —
there’s a line on the bottom there
that asks your reason for volunteer-
ing. I wish it wasn’t there, because I
don’t like inviting lies. I know, and
everybody connected with this proj-
ect knows, that it takes^ome pretty
special motivation for a woman to
volunteer for something like this.
Occasionally we get someone in
here who’s doing it out of pure and
simple — and I do mean simple —
patriotism, and then I don’t mind
asking that question. I don’t think
that applies to you . . . ?”

She shook her head, and tried a
smile.

“Okay. I wanted to explain my
own attitude before I asked. I
don’t care why you’re doing it.
I’m damn glad you are, because
I think you’re the kind of parent we
want. You’ll go through some pretty
rugged tests before we accept you,
but by this time I can usually tell
who’ll get through, and who won’t.
I think you will. And it’s in the na-
ture of things that if you are the
right kind, you’d have to have a
pretty special personal reason for
doing this . . . ?”

He waited. Her lips moved, but
no sound came out.. She tried again,
and when she swallowed, he could
almost feel in his own throat the

lump that wouldn’t let her lie come
out. He' pulled the application form
closer to him, and wrote quickly in
the last space at the bottom, then
shoved it across, so she could see:

I thinly Fm too young to raise a
child properly, and I want to help out,

“All right?” he asked gently. She
nodded, and there were tears in her
eyes. He opened the top drawer and
got her some kleenex. Again she
started to say something, and swal-
lowed instead; then the dam broke.
He wheeled his chair over to hers,
and reached out a comforting hand.
Then her head was on his shoulder,
and she was crying in loud snuffly
childish sobs. When it began to let
up, he gave her some more kleenex,
and got his chair back in position
so he could kick the button under
the desk and dim the light a little.

“Still want to go through with
it?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Want to tell me any more?”

She did; she obviously wanted to
very much. She kept her lips pressed
firmly together, as if the words
might get out in spite of herself.

“You don’t have .to,” he said.
“If you want to, you understand it
stops right here. The form is filled
out "already. There’s nothing else
I have to put on there. But if you
feel like talking a little, now that
we’re — ” He grinned, and glanced
at the damp spot on his shoulder,
“ — now that we’re better ac-
quainted — well, you might feel bet-
ter if you spill some of it.”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

•‘There’s nothing to tell,” she
§ard carefully. “Nothing you don’t
already know.” Her face was ex-
pressionless; there was no way to
tell what she meant.

“All right,” he^id. “In that case,
sk back and get comfortable, be-
cause Tve got some things to tell you.
The Colonel is about to make a
speech.” She smiled, but it was a
polite smile now; for a minute, she
had warmed up, now they were
strangers again.

He had made the same speech,
with slight variations, exactly 237
times before. Every girl or woman
who got past him to the medics
heard it before she went, The word-
ing and the manner changed for
each one, but the substance was the
same.

All he was supposed to do was to
explain the, nature and purposes of
the Project. Presumably, they al-
ready knew that when they came in,
but he was supposed to make sure.
He did. He made very sure that they
understood, as well as each one was
able, not only the purposes, but the
nature: what kind of lives their
children might be expected to lead.

It never made any difference. He
knew it wouldn’t now. Just once, a
woman had cpme to them because
she had been warned that carrying
a child to term would mean her
death and the baby’s, both. She
had listened and understood, and
had asked soberly whether there
were any similar facilities available
privately. He had had to admit

there were not. The process was too
expensive, even for this purpose,
except on a large-scale basis. To do
it for one infant would be possible,
perhaps, for a Rockefeller or an Aga
Khan — not on any lesser scale.
The woman had listened, and hesi-
tated, and decided that life, on any
terms, was better than no life at all.

But this girl with her tremulous
smile and her frightened eye? and
her unweathered skin — this girl
had not yet realized even that it was
a human life she carried inside her-
self; so far, she understood only
that she had done something foolish,
and that there was a slim chance
she might be able to remedy the
error without total disaster or too
much dishonor.

He started with the history of
the Project, explaining the reasons
for it, and the thinking behind it:
the -psychosomatic problems of low-
grav and null- weight conditions;
the use of hypnosis, and its inade-
quacies; the eventual recognition
that only those conditioned from
infancy to low-grav conditions would
ever be able to make the Starhop
... or even live in any comfort
on the Moon.

He ran through it, but she wasn’t
listening. Either she knew it al-
ready, or she just wasn’t interested.
The Colonel kept talking, only be-
cause he was required to brief all
applicants on this ihaterial.

“The problem was how to get the
babies to the Base. So far, nobody
has been able to take more than four

PROJECT NURSEMAID

months of Moon-grav without fairly
serious somatic effects, or else a total
emotional crackup. It wasn’t prac-
tical to take families there, to raise '
our crop of conditioned babies, and
we couldn’t safely transport women
in their last month of pregnancy,
or new-born babies, either one.”

She was paying attention, in a
way. She was paying attention to
A/Vw, but he could have sworn she
wasn’t hearing a word he said.

“The operation,” he went on,
“was devised by Dr. Jordan Zamesh,
of the Navy . . .”

“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly.
“About your uniform.”

“Uniform . . . ?” He glanced at
the spot on his shoulder. “Oh, that’s
all right. It’s almost dry, anyhow.
Dacron.” Damn! He’d miscalcu-
lated. She was too young to stew
over a brief loss of control this way
— but she’d been doing it anyhow,
and he hadn't noticed. Which was
what came of worrying about your
boss when you were supposed to
have your mind on the customers.
Damn! And double it for the Gen-
eral. She might have been ready to
talk, and he’d rushed into his little
speech like an idiot while she sat
there getting over the sobbing-spell.
All by herself. Without any nice
sympathetic help from the nice sym-
pathetic man.

“I guess,” she was saying, “Tsup-
pose you’re used to that?”

“I keep the kleenex handy,” he
admitted. ^

“Does everybody — ?”

“Nope. Just the ones who have
sense enough to know what they’re
doing. The high-powered patriots
don’t, I guess. All the others do,
sooner or later, here or someplace
else.” He. looked at her, sitting
there so much inside herself, so
miserably determined to sustmn her
isolation, so falsely safe inside the
brittle armor of her loneliness. She
had cried for a minute, and cracked
the armor by that much, and now
she hated herself for it.

“What the hell kind of a woman

do you think you’d be?” he said
grimly. “If you’ll pardon my em-
phasis — what the hell kind of
woman could give a baby away with-
out crying a little?”

“I didn’t have to do it on your
uniform.”

“You didn’t have to, but I’m
glad you did.”

“You don’t have to feel . . .”
She caught herself, just in time, and
the Colonel restrained a smile. She
had almost forgotten that there
wasn’t any reason to feel sorry for
Mrs. Barton.

She smoothed out her face, re-
gained a part of her composure.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “All I do is
apologize, isn’t it? Now I mean I’m
sorry, because I wasn’t really listen-
ing to you. I was too embarrassed,
I guess. I’ll listen now.”

He’d lost her again. For a mo^
ment, there had almost been con-
tact, but now she was gone, alone
with her shell of quiet politeness.
The Colonel went on with his speech.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

. . the operatioa is not dan-
gerous,” he explained, “except in-
so£ar as any operation, or the use
of anesthesia, is occasionally dan-
gerous to a rare individual. How-
ever, we have managed to cut down
cm even, that narrow margin; the
physical exams you’ll get before the
application is approved will pretty
well determine whether there is any
reason why ycm should not undergo
operative procedure.

“Essen tially^ what we do is a
simple Caesarian section. There are
mcxlifications, of course,^ to allow
the placenta and membrane to be
removed intact^ but these changes
do not make the operation any more
dangerous.

“There is a certain percentage of
loss in the postoperative care of the
embryos. Occasionally, the nutri-
tive surrogate doesn’t ‘take,’ whether
because of miscalculations on our
part, or unknown factors in the em.-
bryo, we can’t tell, but for the most
part, the embryos thrive and con-
tinue to grow in normal fashion, and
the few that have already been
transported have all survived the
trip — ”

“Colonel . . .

He was relieved; he hadn’t en-
tirely misread her. She was a nice
girl, a good girl, who would be a
good wife and mother some day,
and she interrupted just where she
ought to.

“Yes?” He let himself smile a
little bit, and she took it the right
way.

“Does — Is — I mean, you said,
the operation isn’t dangerous. Biit
what does it do as far as — having
babies later goes?”

“To the best of our knowledge,
it will not impair either your abil-
ity to conceive or your capacity to
carry a baby through a normal preg-
nancy. Depending on your own
heahng potential, and on the results
of some new techniques we’re using,
you rnay have to have Caesarians
with any future deliveries.”

^^ohr

As suddenly as it had- happened
before, when she cried, the false
reserve of shame and pride and worry
fell away from her. Her eyes were
wide, and her tongue flickered out
to wet her upper lip before she could
say, ''There'll be a scar! Won’t there?
This time, I mean?”

There were two things he could
say, and the one that would comfort
her would also seal her away again
behind the barrier of proper man-
ners and assumed assurance. He
spoke slowly and deliberately:

“Perhaps you’d better tell your
husband beforehand. Ceil. ...”

She stared at him. blankly; she’d
forgotten about the husband again.
Then she sat up in her chair and
looked straight at him. "You hpow
Fm not married!" she said. She was
furious.

The Colonel sat back and relaxed.
He picked up the application blank
he had filled out, and calmly tore it
down the center.

“All right,” she said tiredly. She

PROJECT NURSEMAID

^tood up. “I’m sorry I wasted your
time.”

“You didn’t,” he said quietly.
“Not unless you’ve changed your
mind, that is.”

Halfway to the door, she turned
around and looked at him. She
didn’t say anything, just waited.

He took a fresh form out of his
drawer, and motioned to the chair.
“Sit down, won’t you.f^” She took a
tentative half-step back towards
him, and paused, still waiting. He
stood up, and walked around the
desk, carefully not going too close
to her. Leaning on the edge of the
desk, y|ie said quietly, in matter-of-
fect toh?fs:

“Look, Ceil, right now you’re
confused. You’re so angry you don’t
care what happens, and you’re feel-
ing so beat, you haven’t got the
energy to be mad. You don’t know
where you’re going, or where you
can go. And you don’t see any sense
in staying. All right, your big guilty
secret is out now, and I personally
don’t give a damn — except for one
thing: that it had to come out be-
fore we could seriously consider
your application.”

He watched the color come back
to her face, and her eyes go wide
again. “You mean — .?*” she said and
stopped. Looked at the chair; looked
at the door; looked at him, waiting
again.

“I mean,” he said, “bluntly, that
I used every little psychological
trick I know to get you to make that
Horrible Admission. I did it because

what we’re doing here is both im-
portant and expensive, and we don’t
take babies without knowing what
we’re getting. Besides which, I think
you’re the kind of parent we want.
I didn’t want to let you get away.
I hope you won’t go now.” He
reached out and put a hand on her
arm. “Sit down, won’t you. Ceil.?
It won’t hurt to listen a while, and
I think we can work things out.”

This time he pretended not to
notice the tears, and gave her a
chance to brush them away, and get
settled in the chair again, while he
did some unnecessary rummaging
around in his closet. After that it
went smoothly. They stuck to the
assumed name. Barton, but he got
her real name as well, and the col-
lege she was going to. She lived at
school; that would make the arrange-
ments easier.

“We can’t do it till the fifth
month,” he explained. “If every-
thing goes ^11 right till then, we' can
probably arrange for an emergency
appendectomy easily enough. You’ll
come in for regular check-ups mean-
while; and if things start to get too
— obvious, we’ll have to work out
something more complicated, to get
you out of school for a while before-
hand. The scar is enough like an ap-
pendix scar to get away with,” he
added.

The one thing he had really been
disturbed about was her age, but she
insisted she was really nineteen, and
of course he could verify that with
the school. And the one thing she

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

wouldn’t break down about was the
father’s name. He decided that could
wait. Also, he left out the unfinished
part of his speech: the part about
the training the children would
have. For this girl, it was clear, the
only realities were in the immediate
present, and the once-removed di-
rect consequences of present acts.
She was nineteen; the scar mattered,
but the child did not. Not yet.

He took her to the outer office
and asked Helen, at the desk, to
make an appointment for her with
Medical and to give her the stand-
ard literature. Helen pushed a small
stack of phone messages over to
him, and he riffled through. Just
one urgent item, a woman in the in-
firmary with a fit of postoperative
melancholia. They re all in such a
damn hurry to get rid of theybabies^
he thought, and then ^hey want to
hill themselves afierwardsb And this
nice girl, this pretty child, would
be the same way. . . .

Helen had Medical on the phone.
“Tell them I’ll be right down,”
he told her, “for Mrs. Anzio. Ten-
fifteen minutes.”

She nodded, confirmed the time
and date for Ceil’s appointment,
and repeated the message, then lis-
tened a minute, nodding.

“All -right, I’ll tell him.” She
hung up, pulled a prepared stuffed
manila envelope out of her file, and
handed it to the girl. “Four fifteen,
Friday. Bring things for overnight.
You’ll be able to leave about Sunday
morning.” She smiled professionally.

scribbling the time on an appoint-
ment-reminder slip.

“I’ll have to get a weekend pass
— to stay overnight,’^ the girl said
hesitantly.

“All right. Let us know if you
can’t do it this weekend, and wc’ll
fix it when you can.” The Colonel
led her to the door, and turned back
to his secretary inquiringly.

“They said no rush, but you bet-
ter see her before you leave today.
They’re afraid it might get suicidal.”

“Yeah. I know.” He looked at her,
smart and brisk and shiny, the per-
fect Lady Soldier. She had been oc-
cupying that desk for three weeks
now, and he had yet to find a chink
or peephole in the gleaming wall of
her efficiency. And for an old Peeping
Tom like me^ this is going some! The
thought was indignant. “You know
what.f^” he said.

“Sir.?”

“This is a hell of a way to run an
Army!”

“Yes, sir,” she said; but she man-
aged to put a good deal of meaning
into it.

“I take it you agree, but you don’t
approve. If it will make you feel
any better, I have the General’s
word for it. He told me so himself.
Now what about this Browne
woman?”

“Oh. She called twice. The sec*
ond time she told me she wants to
apply for FP. I told her you were in
conference, and would call her back.
She was very — insistent.”

“I see. Well, you call her back,

PROJECT NURSEMAID

and make an appointment for to-
morrow. Then . . •

“There’s another FP coming to-
morrow afternoon,” she reminded
him. “A Mrs. Leahy.”

“Well! Two in one day. Maybe
business is picking up. Put Browne
in first thing in the morning. Then
call the Dean of Women at Hender-
son, and make an appointment for
me — I’ll go there — any time that’s
convenient. Sooner the better. Tell
her it’s the Project, but don’t say
what about.” There were three more
messages; he glanced. at them again,
and tossed them back on her desk.
“You can handle these. I better go
see that Anzio woman.”

“What shall I tell General Martin,
sir.?” She picked up the slip with
the message from his office, and stud-
ied it with an air of uninformed be-
wilderment.

The Perfect Lady Soldiery all righty
he decided. 'No buc\s passed to her,
“Tell his secretary that I had to rush
down to Medical, and I’ll ring him
back when I’m done,” he said, and
managed to make it sound as if that
was what he’d meant all along.

In the morning, very slightly
hung over, he checked first with
the Infirmary, and was told that
Mrs. Anzio had been quiet after he
left, had eaten well, and had spent
the night under heavy sedation.
She was quiet now, but had refused
breakfast.

“She supposed to go home to-
day?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“Well, don’t let her go. I’ll get
down when I have a chance, and
see how she sounds. Who’s O.D.
down there? Bill Sawyer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, tell him I’d suggest stop-
ping sedation now.”

“Yes, sir.”

He hung up and buzzed Helen.
“You can send Miss Browne in
now.”

Miss Browne settled her bony
bottom on the edge of the visitors’
chair. She was dressed in black, with
one smart-looking gold pin on her
lapel to show she was modern and
broad-minded — and a mourning-
band on her sleeve, to show she
wasn’t too forgetful of the old-fash-
ioned proprieties. She spoke in a
faintly nasal whine, and used ele-
gant, refined language and diction.

It took about 60 seconds to deter-
mine that she could not be seriously
considered for the job. It took an-
other 60 minutes to go through the
formality of filling out an applica-
tion blank, and hearing her reasons
for wanting to spend a year at Moon
Base in the service of the State. It
took most of the rest of the morning
to compose a report that might
make clear to the General just why
they could not use an apparently
healthy woman of less than thirty-
five years, with no dependents or
close attachments (her father had
just died, after a long illness, during

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

which she had given up "'everythin^''
to care for him), with some nursing
experience, and with a stated desire
to “give what I can for society,
now that there is nothing more I
can do for my beloved father.”

Give^ he thought. Give till it hurts.
Then give a little more, till it hurts
as much as possible. It was inevitable
that this sort of job should attract
the martyr types; inevitable, but
still you wondered, when nine-
tenths of the population had never
heard of the Project, just how so
many of this kind came so swiftly
and unerringly to his waiting room.

He wrote it down twice for the
General: once with psychological
jargon, meant to impress; and again
with adjectives and examples, and
a case history or two, meant to
educate. When he was done, he had
little hope that he had succeeded in
making his point. He signed the re-
port and handed it to Helen to send
up.

Mrs. Leahy, in the afternoon, was
a surprise.

She walked into his oflSce with
no sign of either the reluctance-and--
doubt or the eagerness-and-arro-
gance that marked almost every ap-
plicant who entered there. She sat
down comfortably in the visitors*^
chair, and introduced herself with a
friendliness and social ease that made
it clear she was accustomed to meet-
ing strangers.

She was a plump— not fat —
attractive woman,, past her first
youth, but in af^earance not yet

what could be called middle-aged.
He was startled when she stated her
age as forty-seven; he was further
startled when she stated her occupa-
tion. '

“Madam,” she said, and chuckled
with pleasure when he couldn’t help
himself from looking up sharply.
“You don’t know how I’ve been
waiting to see your face when I said
that,” she explained, and he thought
wearily, / should have hpown. Just
another exhibitionist. For a few min-
utes, he had begun to think he had
one they could use.

“Do you always show your feeF
ings all over your face like that.?”
she asked gleefully. “You’d think,
in your job — The reason I was look-
ing forward to saying it was — wiell,
two reasons. First, I figured you’d
be one of these suave-feced opera-
tors, professionally unsHockable, and
I wanted to jolt you.”

“You did, and I am,” he said
gravely. “Usually.”

She smiled. “Second, I’m not
often in a position to pull off any-
thing like that. People would disap
prove, and what’s worse, they’d
refuse to wait on me in stores, or
read me lectures, or — anyhow, it
seemed to me that here' I could just
start out telling the truth, seeing that
you’d find out anyhow. I don’t sup’*
pose the people you accept get sent:
up before you’ve checked them?”^^

“You’re right again.” He pushed
his chair back, and decided to relax
and enjoy it. He liked this woman*
“Tell me some more.”

PROJECT NURSEMAID

She did, at length and entertain-
ingly. She was a successful business-
woman. She had proved that much
to her own satisfaction, and now she
was bored. The house ran itself, ah
most, and was earning more money
than she needed for personal use.
She had: no real interest in expand-
ing her operations; success for its
own sake meant nothing to her. She
had somehow escaped the tradi-
tional pitfalls of Career; maybe it
was the specialized nature of her
business that never let her forget
she was a woman, and so preserved
her femininity of both viewpoint
and personality.

It was harder to understand how
she had managed to escape the
normal occupation^ disease of her
world: the yearning for respectabil-
ity and a place in conventional
society. Instead she wanted new
places, new faces, and something to
do that would make use of her abil-
ities and give scope to her abundant
affections.

“Fve never had children of my
own,” she said, and for the first
time lost a trace of her aplomb. “I —
you realize, in my business, you
don’t start out at the top.? A lot of
the girls are sterile to start with, and
a lot more get that way. Since I
started my own place, the girls
have been almost like my own — ■
some of them, the ones I keep — but
. , . I think I’d like to have some
rei babies to take care of.” Her
voice came back to normal: “Get-
ting to gr^dmother age, I guess.”

“I see.” He sat up briskly, and
finished the official form, making
quick notes as she parried his ques-
tions with efficient quiet answers.
When he was done, he looked up
and met her eyes, unwillingly. “I
may as well be frank with you, Mrs.
Leahy — ”

“Brushoff.?” she broke in softly.

He. nodded. “I’m afraid so.” She
started to get up, and he reached
out a hand, involuntarily, as if to
hold her in her seat. “Don’t go just
yet. Please. There’s something I’d
like to say.”

She sat still, waiting, the bit-
terness behind her eyes veiled with
polite curiosity.

“Just . . .” He hesitated, want-
ing to pick the right words to get
through her sudden defenses. “Just
that, in my personal opinion, you’re
the best prospect we’ve had in six
months. I haven’t got the nerve to
say it in so many words, when I
m^e my report. But I didn’t fill
out that form just to use up more
of your time. If it were up to me,
you’d be on your way down for a
physical exam right now. Unfor-
tunately, I am not the custodian of
moralities in this Army, or even on
Project.

“What I’m goitig to do is send in
a report recommending that we re-
serve decision. I’ll tell you now in
confidence that we’re having a hard
time getting the right kind of peo-
pSe. The day may come — ” He
broke off, and looked at her almost
pleadingly. “You understand? I

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

1 8

can’t recommend you, and if I did,
I’d be overruled. But I wish I could,
and if things change, you may still
hear from us.”

“I understand.” She stood up,
looking tired; then, with an effort,
she resumed her cheerful poise, and
took his offered hand to shake good-
by. “I won’t wish you bad luck, so
— goodby.”

“Goodby. And thank you,” he
said with sincerity, “for coming in.”

Then he wrote up his report, went
down to see the Anzio woman,
cleared her for release, and went
home where a half-empty bottle
waited from the night before.

There was no summons from the
General waiting for him in the
morning, and no friendly, casual
visit during the hour before he left
to see Dean Lazarus at Henderson.
He didn’t know whether to regard
the silence as ominous or hopeful;
so he forgot it, temporarily, and
concentrated on the Dean.

He approached her cautiously,
with generalizations about the Proj-
ect, and the hope that if she were
ever in a position to refer anyone to
them, she would be willing to co-
operate, etc. etc. She was pleasant,
polite, and intelligent for half an
hour, and then she became impa-
tient.

“^All right. Colonel, suppose we
come to the point.

“What point did you have in
mind?” he countered warily.

“I have two students waiting out-

side to see 'me,” she said, “and I
imagine you also have other busi-
ness to attend to. I take it one of
our girls is in what is called ‘trou-
ble’? She came to you, and you want
to know whether I’ll work with you,
or whether the kid will get bounced
out of school if I know about it.
Stop me if I’m wrong.”

“Go on,” he said.

“All right. The answer is, it de-
pends on the girl. There are some
I’d grab any chance to toss out. But
I’d guess, from the fact that she
wound up coming to you, she either
isn’t very experienced or she is
conscientious. Or both.”

“I’d say both, on the basis of our
interview.”

She looked him over thought-
fully. Lousy technique^ he thought,
and had to curb a wicLed impulse
to ham up his role and confuse her
entirely; it wasn’t often he had a
chance to sit in the visitors’ chair.

That studying look of hers would
put anybody on the defensive, he
thought critically, and then realized
that maybe it was meant to do just
that. Her job didn’t have the same
requirements as his.

“Let me put it this way,” she
said finally. “I’m here to try to help
several hundred adolescent females
get some education into their heads,
and I don’t mean just out of books.
I’m also here to see to it that the
College doesn’t get a bad reputa-
tion: no major scandals or suicides,
or anything like that. If the girl is
worth helping, and if you want my

PROJECT NURSEMAID

cooperation in a plan that will keep
things quiet and respectable, and
make it possible for her to continue
at school — believe me, you’ll have
it.”

That left it squarely up to him.
Was the girl “worth helping”-? or
rather: would Dean La^rus think
so?

“I think,” he said slowly, “rif
have to ask you tp promise me first
— since your judgment and mine
may not agree — that you won’t use
any information you get from me
against the girl. If you don’t want
to help, when you know who it is,
you’ll just sit back. All right?”

She thought that over. “Provid-
ing I don’t happen to acquire the
same information from other
sources,” she said.

“Without going looking for it,” he
added.

“I’m an honest woman. Colonel
Edgerly.”

“I think you are. I have your
word?”

“You do.”

“The girl’s name is Cecille Cha-
nute. You know her . . . ?”

“Ce/ 7 / Oh, my God! Of course.
It’s always the ones you don’t worry
about! Who’s the boy? And why on
earth don’t they just get married,
and-. . . ?”

He was shaking his head. “I don’t
know. She wouldn’t say. That’s one
thing I thought you might be able
to help me with. ...”

He left very shortly afterwards.
Ttopart, at least, would be all right.

Unless something unexpected turned
up in the physical, the only problem
now was getting the necessary data
on the father.

When he got back to the office,
the memo from the General was on
his desk.

TO : Edgerly

FROM: Martin

[No titles. Informal. That meant
it wasn’t the death-blow yet.

Not quite.]

RE: Applicants for PN's and FP
positions.

After reading your reports of yes-
terday^ 9fi6y and after giving the
mutter some thought,, bearing in mind
our conversation of 9/ 15^ it seems to
me that we might hold off on accept^
ing any further PN's until- the FP
situation clears up. Suggest you defer
aU further interviews for PN's, Let's
put our minds to the other part of the
problem,, and see what we can do.
This is urgent^ Tom, If you have any
suggestions^ Til be glad to hear themy
any time.

It was signed, in scrawly pencil,
H, M, Just a friendly npte. But
attached to it was a detailed sched-
ule of PN acceptances, operations,
shipments, and deliveries to date,
plus a projected schedule of opera-
tions, shipments, and theoretical due
dates for deliveries. The second sheet
was even adjusted for statistical ex-
pectations of losses all along the line.

What emerged, much more clearly
than it had in the General’s solemn
speechmaking, was that it would be

necessary not only to have one more
Foster Parent trained and ready to
leave in less than three months, but
that through January and February
they would need at least one more
FP on every biweekly rocket, to
take care of the deliveries already
scheduled.

Little Ceil didn’t know how
ducky she was. Just in under the wire^
kid. She was lucky to have somebody
like that Lazarus dame on her side,
too.

And that was an idea. People like
Lazarus could help.

He buzzed Helen, and spent most
of the rest of the day dictating a
long and careful memo, proposing a
publicity campaign for Foster Par-
ent applications. If the percentage
of acceptances was low, the logical
thing to do about it was increase the
totals, starting with the applica-
tions. Now that he’d have more
time to devote to FP work, with
the curtailments on PN, he might
fruitfully devote some part of it to
a publicity campaign: discreet, of
course, but designed to reach those
groups that might provide the most
useful material.

The Colonel was pleased when he
had finished. He spent some time
mapping out a rough plan of ap-
proach, using Dean Lazarus as his
prototype personality. Social work-
ers, teachers, personnel workers —
these were the people with the con-
tacts and the judgment to provide
him with a steady stream of re-
ferrals.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Five women to find in two months
— with this program, it might even
be possible.

The reply from the General’s of-
fice next morning informed him
that his suggestion was being con-
sidered. For some weeks, apparently,
it continued to be considered, with-
out further discussion. During that
time, the Colonel saw Ceil Chanute
again, after her Med report came
through okayed, and then went to
see Dean Lazarus once more.

Neither of them had had any
luck finding out who the boy was.
They worked out detailed plans for
Cell’s “appendectomy,” and the
Dean undertook to handle the girl’s
family. She felt strongly that they
should not be told the truth, and the
Colonel was content to let her exer-
cise her own judgment.

At the end of the two weeks, an-
other applicant came in. The Co-
lonel tried his unconscientious best
to convince himself the woman
would do; but he knew she wouldn’t.
This time it took less than an hour
for an answer from the General’s
office. A phone call, this time.

“. . . I was just thinking, Tom,
until we start getting somewhere on
the FP angle — I notice you’ve got
six PN’s scheduled that aren’t proc-
essed yet. Three-four of them,
there are loopholes. I think we ought
to drop whatever we can . . . ?”

“If you think so, sir.”

“Well, it makes sense to me.
There’s one the Security boys

PROJECT NURSEMAID

haven’t been able to get a complete
check on; something funny there.
And this gal who won’t tell us the
father’s name. And the one who was
supposed to come in last week and
postponed it. We can tell her it’s
too late now . . . ?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll have to see them,
of course. These women are pretty
desperate, sometimes. They — well,
I think it would be better to con-
sider each case separately, talk to
each one — ■ There’s no telling what
some of them might do. We don’t
want any ^//favorable publicity,”
he said, and waited for some rer
sponse to the pointed reminder.

There was none. “No, of course
not. You use your judgment, Tom,
that’s all, but I’d like to have a re-
port on each one — just let me know
what you do about it. Every bit o(
pressure we can get off is going to
help, you know.”

And that was all. Nothing about
his Memo. Just a gentle warning
that if he kept on being stubborn,
he was going to be backed up a little
further — each and et/ery time.

He got the file folders on the
three cases, and studied two of
them. The “Barton” folder he never
even opened. He found he was feel-
ing just a little more stubborn than
usual.

Sergeant Gregory came in, and
he dictated a letter of inquiry to the
woman who had failed to keep her
appointment, then instructed the
Sergeant to^ call the other one, and
make an appointment for her to

come in and see him. “But first,” he
finished, “get me Dean Lazarus at
Henderson, will you?”

Ill

Waiting out there in the room
with the Wac and the mirror was
almost as bad as it had been the first
time. Something was wrong. Some-
thing had happened to spoil every-
thing. It had Jtb be that, or he
couldn’t haye got her called out of
class. Not unless it was really im-
portant. And how did he explain it
to Lazar anyhow?

She sat there for five minutes
that seemed like hours, and then
the door opened and he came out
with a welcoming smile on his lips,
and all of a sudden everything was
all right.

“Hi. You made good time, kid.
Come on in.”

“I took 4 cab. I didn’t change or
anything.” It couldn't be very bad,
if he looked so calm.

“Well, don’t change next time
cither,” he said, closing the door
behind them. “Jeans are more your
speed. And a shirt like that coming
in here once in a while does a lot to
brighten up my life,”

The main thing was, he had said
next time. She let out a long breath
she didn’t know she’d been holding,
and sat down iii the big chair.

“All right,” he said, as soon as
he had gone through the preliminary
ritual of lighting cigarettes. “Now
listen close, kid, because we are in^

what might be called a jam. A mess.
Difficulties. Problems.”

“I figured that when you called.”
But she wasn’t really worried any
more. Whatever it was, it couldn’t
ht very bad. “I was wondering —
what did you tell the Dean?”

“The Dean . . . ? Oh, I told her
the truth. Ceil. About two days
after you first came in.”

“You what?"' Everything was up-
side down; nothing made sense. She
had been asked to one of Lazar’s
teas yesterday. The old girl had been
sweet as punch today about the call,
and excusing her from classes. “ What
did you say?” she asked again.

“I said, I told her the truth, away
back when. Now, listen a minute.
You’re nineteen years old and you’re
a good girl, so you still respect Au-
thority; Authority being people like
Sarah Lazarus and myself. Only it
just so happens that people like us
are human beings too. I don’t ex-
pect you to believe that, just be-
cause I say it, but try to pretend for
a few minutes, will you?” There was
a smile playing around the corners
of his mouth. She didn’t know
whether to be angry or amused or
worried. “I went in to see Mrs.
Lazarus in the hope that she’d co-
operate with us in planning your
‘appendectomy.’ It turned out she
would. She thinks a lot of you. Ceil,
and she was glad to help.”

“You took an awful chance,” she
said slowly.

“No. I made sure of my ground
before I said anything. A lot surer

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

than I am now. I think when you
get back, you better go have a talk
with the lady. And after that, you
better remember that she’s keeping
her mouth shut, and it would be a
good idea if you did the same. You
realize the spot shed be on, if other
girls found out . . . ?”

She flushed. “I’m not likely to do
much talking,” she reminded him,
and immediately felt guilty, because
Sally knew. It was Sally who had
sent her to that doctor . . .

“Everybody talks to somehodyy"
jhe said flatly. “When you feel like
you have to talk, try to come here.

If you can’t, just be careful who

* * 9 9

It IS.

His voice was sharp and edgy;
she’d never heard him talk that
way before. 7 didn't dojanythingy she
thought, bewildered. He ejeared his
throat, aiid when he spoke again,
his voice sounded more normal.

“All right, we’ve got that out of
the way. Now: the reason I asked
you to come in such a hurry — well,
to put it bluntly, and without too
much detail, there’ve been some ^
policy changes higher-up here, and
there’s pressure being put on me to
drop as many of the PN’s coming
up as I can find excuses for.”

PN's? she wondered, and then
realized — PreNataL

“. . . I didn’t want to do this.

I hoped you’d tell me in your own
time.'” She’d missed something; she
tried to figure it out as he went
along. “If you didn’t — well, we’ve
handled two-three cases before where

PROJECT NURSEMAID

the father could not be located.”
Oh!

^‘Till now,” he went on, “I
thought if we couldn’t convince you
that it was in the best interests of the
child for you to let us know, we
might be able to get by without
insisting. But now I’m afraid I’m
going to have to ask you to tell me
whether you want to or not. I’ll
promise to use every bit of tact
and discretion possible, but — ”

“I carit^' she broke in.

“Why not?”

“Because ... I can’t.” K she
told the reason, it would be as bad
as telling it all.

“Not even if it means you can’t
have the operation?”

That's not fair! There was noth-
ing she could say.

“Lxjok, Ceil, if it’s just that you
don’t want him to know, we might
be able to work it that way. Most
people have physical exams on rec-
ord one place or another, and the
little bit more that we like to know
about the father, you can probably
tell us — or we can find out other
ways. Does that change the picture
any?”

She bit her lip. Maybe they could
get all the information without —
not without going through the Acad"
emy, they couldn’t. It was there,
that was true enough. Charlie
wouldn’t have to know at all —
not till they kicked him out of
school, that is! She shook. her head.

“Look,” he said. He was pleading
with her now. Why didn’t he just

tell her to go to hell and throw her
out, if it was all that important?
Why should it matter to him?
“Look, I’m supposed to be send-
ing you a regretful note right now.
But the fact is, if I can put in a re-
port that you came in today ^ before
I could take any action, and that
you voluntarily cleared up the prob-
lem ... do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think I do.”

“You’re thinking that this is a
trick? I tricked you once before, so
that you told me what you didn’t
mean to. Now I’m doing it again?
Is that it?”

“Aren’t you?” ^

“No.” His eyes met hers, and held
there. She wanted to believe him.
'He had admitted it the other time
— but not till after he found out
what he wanted to know.

“Maybe I don’t I^owf she said
spitefully. That was silly, a childish
thing to say. Suddenly she realized
he hadn’t spoken since she said it,
and —

Migod! Suppose he believes it! She
looked up swiftly, and found a smile
on his lips.

“Why on earth would you tell me
a thing like that?” he asked mildly.
“Are you feeling wicked today?”

All rights she thought, you win.
But she needed a few minutes; she
had to think it out. “Thank you,”
sEe said, stalling, but also because
she meant it.

“You’re welcome I’m sure. What
for?”

“At the doctor’s I went to —

they asked me if\ knew who it was.”

The Colonel smiled. “You’re a
nice girl, Ceil. Don’t forget it.
You’re a nice girl, and it shows all
over you, and anybody who can’t
see it is crazy. That doctor should
have his head examined.”

“It wasn’t the doctor. It was the
nurse.”

“That explains it.” When he
grinned like that, he seemed hardly
any older than she was.

“You mean she was just being —
well, catty?'*'*

“That’s one way of putting it.”
He opened his bottom desk drawer,
and pulled out a round shaving
mirror, with a little stand on it.
She took the mirror hesitantly, when
he handed it to her. Jonathan Jo
had a mouth IH^ an O, And a wheel'
barrow full of surprises ... or a
desk drawer. She held the mirror
gingerly, not sure what it was for.

“I’m sorry,” she giggled. “I don’t
shave yet. I’m too young.”

He smiled. “Take a look.”

She didn’t want to. She looked
quickly, and tried to hand it back,
but he didn’t take it. He left it lying
on the desk.

“All right,” he said. “Now: do
you remember what the other lady
looked like? The nurse?”

“She was blonde,” Ceil recalled
slowly. “Dyed-blonde, I mean, and
her skin was sort of — I guess she
had too much powder on. But she
was kind of good-looking.”

“Was she? How old do you think
she was?”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Oh, maybe, I don’t know —
forty?”

'"And why do you suppose she was
wording in a place Uhe that?*'

She sat there, and tried to think
of an answer. What kind of reason
would a woman have for working
for that kind of a doctor? All she
could think of was what her mother
would have said: Well, you hpow,
dear, some people just don't care. I
don't suppose she things about it, just
so long as she earns a living. They're
well paid, you hp,ow.

That’s what was in the back of her
own mind, too — until she stopped to
think about it; and then she couldn’t
figure out an answer. She couldn’t
think of any reason that could make
her do it.

She looked at him hopelessly,
like a child caught unprepared in
grammar school, and she saw he was
grinning at her again. Not in a
mean way; it was more as if he were
pleased with her for trying to an-
swer than making fun because she
couldn’t.

Maybe the important thing was
just to try. That’s what he’d been
trying to tell her. That was the way
he thought about people, all the
time.

“I can’t tell you his name,” she
said, and took a deep breath and let
out a rush of words with it, all run
together: “He’s-a-cadet-at-the-
Space- Academy 'they’d — ” She had
to stop and breathe again. “They’d
throw him out.”

“I don’t think so,” he said

PROJECT NURSEMAID

thoughtfully. “I think we could
manage it so they . . His voice
trailed off.

“You don’t know how tough they
are there — ” she insisted, and then
stopped herself. “I guess you do.”

He was silent for a moment, and
then he said unexpectedly, “Nope.
You’re right.” His voice was bitter.
“That’s exactly what they’d do.”
He sat and thought some more;
then he smiled, looking very tired.
“All right. All we really care about
with the father is the physical exam.
If you want to get in touch with
him yourself, and ask him to come
in, using any name he wants, that
would do it. Or if you’d rather, you
can tell me, off the record, and I’ll
get in touch. But either way, you
have my word his name won’t get
any farther than this chair without
your permission.”

She thought about that. She
ought to do it herself, but . . .
“d’d trust you^' she said. “If that’s
all right. If you don’t mind. I’d —
just as lief not I don’t really
want to see him, if I don’t have to.”

“Any way you want it, kid.”
He wrote down the name, when she
told him, on a piece of paper from
his memo pad: Charles Bolido. He
drew a line slowly under the two
words; then he looked up at her,
and down at the pad again, and
drew another line, very dark and
swift, beneath the first.

“Look, Ceil, it’s none of my busi-
ness if you don’t want to talk about
it, but — well, are you sure you

know what you want to do? Before
I get in touch with the boy — well,
put it this way: are you giving him
a fair break? I gather you’re not on
very good terms any more, and you
say he doesn’t know about the baby.
Maybe — ”

‘Wo,” she said.

He smiled. “Okay, kid. It’s your
life, not mine. Only one thing: what
do I do if he wants to see you?
Suppose he wants to quit school and
get married?”

“He won’t,” she said, but she
had to clear her throat before the
words came out right. “He won’t.”
And she remembered. . . .

. . . the grass was greener than any
grass had ever been, and the water was
bluer, and the shj was far and high
above and beyond while he tailed
about the rockets that would take him
on top of the*duffed'OUt clouds, and
away beyond the other side of the
powder-puff daytime moon. The sun
trailed across the vaulting heaven, and
the shade of the oa\ tree fell away
from them. They were hot and happy,
and he jumped up, and too\ her hands,
and she stood up into his arms,

“Love you, babe,” he whispered
in her ear.

She leaned bac\ and looked up at
him and in the streairiing sunlight he
seemed to be ori fire with beauty and
strength and youth and she said, “/
love you, Charlie savoring the words,
tasting them, because she had never
said them before.

She thought a frown crossed his

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

faCe^ but she wouldn't believe it^ not
then. He too\ her hand,, and they ran
together down into the water.

It wasn't till later ^ in the car,, that
she had to believe the frown; that was
when he began explaining carefully^
in great detail^ what his plans were,,
what a Spaceman's life was Itkp,, and
why he could not thin\ about marriage^
not seriously about any girl.

He never even hnew it had been the
first time for her,, the only time, . . .

She couldn’t explain all that.. She
sat still and looked at the man across
the desk, the man with the nice
smile and the understanding eyes
and the quiet voice. Charlie has
'wavy blac\ hair,, she remembered;
the Colonel’s was sandy 'Colored and
straight, crew-cut. Charlie had broad
shoulders and his skin was bronzed
and he had a way of tilting his head
so that he seemed to be looking off
into the distance, too far for her to
see. The Colonel was nice-enough-
looking, but his skin was pale and
his shoulders a little bit round —
from working indoors, at a desk, all
the time, she supposed. Only, when
he looked at you, he saw you, and
when he listened, he understood.
She couldn’t explain the whole
thing, but of course, she didn’t have
to . . . not to him.

“He won’t want to,” she said
quietly; she had no trouble talking
now. “If he says so, he won’t really
mean it. He — he couldn't give up
the Space school. That’s all he ever
wanted. It’s the only thing that

matters to him.” She said it evenly,
in- a detached objective way, just
the way she wanted to, and then
she sat absolutely still, waiting for
what he’d say.

He tapped his pencil, upside
down, on the top of the desk. She
couldn’t see his face at all. Then ht
looked up, and he had a made-up
smile on his face this time, a smile
he didn’t mean. He nodded his head
a little. “I see.” Then he stood up,
and came around to the side of the
desk where she was sitting, and put
both his hands on her shoulders,
and with his thumbs against the
sides of her jaw, he tilted her face up,
so she was looking straight at him.

“You’re a good girl. Ceil.” He
meant that, “You’re a hell of a good
girl, and the chances are Charlie is
a lot better than you give him
credit for. Thereiox — ” He laughed,
and let go of her shoulders, and
leaned back against the desk. “. . . I
am not going to give you the fond
paternal kiss I had in mind a moment
ago. You might misunderstand.”
He grinned. “Or you might not,"

He wanted her to go now. She
stood up, but there was a feeling of
something more she had to say,'
“I wish you had,” was what she
said, and she was horrified. She
hadn’t even thought that.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s pre-
tend I did. Didn’t you wear a coat.?”

“I had a jacket. I guess I left it
outside.”

He had the door open. “I’ll let
you know how it turns out,” he

PROJECT NURSEMAID

promised her, and then he turned
around and started talking to the
Wac.

He didn’t even see her out the
other door.

Once each month, on the average,
a Miracle came to pass, and a woman
entered Colonel Edgerly’s office who
seemed, in his judgment, emo-
tionally fit to undertake a share of
the job of giving 200 homeless,
motherless, wombless infants the
kind of care that might help them
grow up to be mature human beings.

He had thought the Miracle for
this month was used up when Mrs.
Leahy came in. It was a Major
Miracle, after all, when one of these
women could also pass the Medical
and Security checks, as well as his
own follow-ups with the formal
psych tests. To date, in almost nine
months of interviewing, there had
been only three, such Major Mir-
acles.

Mrs. Serruto, the Colonel sus-
pected, was not going to be the
fourth. But if she failed, it would
likely be in Medics; meantime, he
could have the satisfaction at least
of turning in one more favorable
preliminary report.

She came in the morning after his
interview with Ceil, without an ap-
pointment, and totally unexpected
— a gift, he decided, directly from a
watchful Providence to him. Virtue
had proved an inadequately self-

sufficient reward through a restless
night; but surely Mrs. Serruto had
been Sent to make recompense.

Liule girls with big blue eyes should
h^ep their transferences out of my
oificey he wrote rapidly on a crisp
sheet of white paper. He underlined
it, and added three large exclama-
tion points. Then he filed it neatly
in his bottom desk drawer — the
same one that held his unpublished
article — and turned to Mrs. Ser-
ruto with a smile. She was settled
and comfortable now, ready to talk;
and so was he. He pulled over an
application pad, and began filling
things in, working his way to the'
bottom, and the important personal
questions.

He paused a moment at occupa-
tion — but it couldn’t happen
twice. It didn’t. “Housewife,” she
said quietly; then she smiled and
added, “But I think I’m out of a job.
That’s why I came.”

He listened while she told him
about herself and her family, and he
actually began to hope. Her son was
in the Space Service already, on the
Satellite. He’d just passed his year
of Probationary, and now the
daughter-in-law had qualified for a
civilian job up there. The young
wife and the two grandsons had been
hving with her; the grandmother
kept house, while the mother went
to school, to learn astronomical no-
tation.

Now the girl was going up to be
with her husband and to work as an
Observatory technician and secre-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

tary; the boys would go to Yuma,
to the school SpaServ maintained
for just that purpose.

“We weren’t sure about the boys,”
Mrs. Serruto explained. “We talked
it over every which way, whether
they’d be better off staying with me,
or going to Yuma, but the way they
work it there, the children all have a
turn to go up Satellite on vacations,
and they have an open radio connec-
tion all the time. And of course,
it’s such a wonderful school. . . .
It was just they seemed awfully
young to be on their own, but this
way they’ll be closer to their own
parents than if they were with me.”

“What made you decide on a Fos-
ter Parent job, Mrs. Serruto?” Lei
her just answer right once more^ he
prayed, to whatever Providence had
sent her there. Just once more . . .
“Most of the applicants here arc a
good deal younger than you are,”
he added. “It’s unusual to find a
woman of your age willing to start
out in a strange place again.” He
smiled. “A very strange place.”

“I — Oh, it’s foolish for me to try
to fool you, isn’t it? You’re a trained
psychologist, I guess? Well, all the
reasons you’d think of are part of it:
I’m not young, but I still have my
strength, thank the Lord, and I
kind of lik^ the idea of something
new. Lots of people my age feel
that way; look at all the retired peo-
ple who start traveling. And keeping
house in the same town for thirty-
two years can kind of give you a yen
to see the world. But if you want the

honest answer, sir, it’s just that I
heard^ I don’t know if it’s true, but
I heard that if you get one of these
jobs, you spend your leaves on
Satellite . . . ?”

She was watching him anxiously;
he had to restrain his own satisfac-
tion, so as not to mislead her. She
wasn’t in yet, by a long shot — but
he "^s going to do everything he
could to get her there.

“That’s right,” he told her. “In
theory, you get four days off out
of every twenty. The shuttle be-
tween Base and Satellite is on a
four-day schedule, and one FP out
of every five is supposed to have
leave each trip. Actually, that only
gives you about 45 hours on the
Satellite, allowing for shuttle-time.
And at the beginning, you may not
get leave as regularly as you will
later on.” He realized what he was
doing, and stopped himself, switch-
ing to a cautious third-person-im-
personal. “There’s been a good deal
of research done on what we call
LGT, Mrs. Serruto — that’s short
for Low Gravity Tolerance. We
don’t know so much yet about No-
Grav, but they’re collecting the data
on that right now. There’s a pamph-
let with all the information we have
so far; you’ll get a copy to take
home with you, and then if you still
want to apply, and if you can pass
the tests, there’s a two-months’
Indoctrination Course, mostly de-
signed to prepare the candidate for
the experience of living under
Moon-Grav conditions.

PROJECT NURSEMAID

‘‘The adjustment isn’t easy, no
matter how much we do to try and
simplify it. But the leave schedule
we’re using has worked out, for
regular SpaServ personnel. That is
to s^, we’ve cut down the inci-
dence of true somatic malfunc-
tions — ”

She made a funny despairing ges-
ture with hands and shoulders. He
smiled. “Put it this way: Low-grav
and No-grav do have some direct —
call it mechanical effects on the
function of the human body. But
most of these problems are cumula-
tive. It takes — let’s see, at Moon-
grav, which is about one sixth of
what you’re used to, it takes from
ten to twelve months, in the average
case, for any serious mechanical mal-
functions to show up — I should
have let you read the pamphlet
first,” he said. “They’ve got it all
explained there, step by step.”

He paused hopefully, but she ob-
viously didn’t want to wait; she
wanted to hear it now. “Anyhow,”
he went on, “we found, by experi-
menting, that the total tolerance
could be extended considerably by
breaking up the period. To put it as
simply as possible: the lower the
gravity, the shorter the time before
serious ‘structural’ malfunctions be-
gin to appear — you understand?
When I say ‘structural’ I mean not
only that something isn’t working
right, but that there’s been actual
physical damage done to the body in
some way, so that it cant work
right.”

The faint froyi^n went away, and
she nodded eagerly.

“All right. The lower the gravity,
the quicker the trouble. Also, the
shorter the time-span, the more you
can take. That is, a person whose
total tolerance at any particular low
gravity is, say, six weeks — taken at
a stretch — can take maybe ten or
twelve weeks if he does it a few days
at a time, with leaves spent at nor-
mal, or at least higher, gravity.

“The reason for this last fact is
that even before the structural mal-
functions begin to appear, most peo-
ple start suffering from all kjnds of
illnesses — usually not serious, at
first, but sometimes pretty annoying
— and these are psychogenic, .

He looked at her inquiringly, and
she nodded, a little uncertainly.

“Very few of the body functions
actually depend on gravity,” he ex-
plained. “I mean int^al functions.
But all of us are conditioned to per-
forming these functions under a
normal Earth-gravity. A person’s
digestive system, for instance, or
vase — circulatory system, will work
just as well with low gravity, or
none; but it has to work a little diff-
erently. And the result is a certain
amount of confusion in the parts of
the brain that control what we call
‘involuntary’ reflexes: so that the
heart, for instance, tries to pump
just as hard as it should to suit the
environment it’s in — and at the
same time it may be getting mes-
sages from the brain to pump just
as hard as it’s used to doing.

3 ®

“When that happens you may —
or anyone may — develop a heart
condition of some kind; but it’s just
as likely that the patient might come
up with purely psychological symp-
toms. Or any one of the various psy-
chogenic diseases that result from
ordinary internal conflicts, or anxiety
states, may develop instead — ”

Now she was shaking her head in^
bewilderment again. “Look,” he
said. Enough was enough. “This is
all in the reading matter you’ll get
when you leave today. And it’s a lot
clearer than f can make it. For now,
just take my word for it, on account
of the psych end of it, four months
has been set as the limit of unbroken
Moon duty. However, we’ve found
that people can take up to a year
there with no bad effects at all, if
they get frequent enough leave.
That’s why it’s set up the way it is
now.”

“You mean one year is all?” she
asked quickly. “That’s the most?”

He shook his head. “No. That’s
the standard Tour of duty on the
present leave system. Here^s how it
works: You sigh a year’s contract,
which is really for sixteen months,
except the last four months are Earth
leave. During the twelve months on
the moon, you get twenty per cent
Satellite leave. That means you
spend one-fifth of your time at a
higher gravity. Not Earth-normal:
the Satellite’s set at three-quarters
— you know that?” ,

She shook her head. “I didn’t
know. I knew it was less than here on

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Earth, but the way Ed described
things there, I thought it was a lot
le^ than that.”

“It probably would be,” he told
her, “if we didn’t use the Satellite
for leaves for Base personnel and
people from the asteroid stations*
Down to about one-half-grav, the
bad effects are hardly noticeable,
and there are technical reasons why
we’d prefer to have to maintain less
spin on Satellite. .But three-quarters
is just about optimum for the short
leaves: high enough to^estore your
peace of mind, and low enough to
make it comparatively easy to read-
just each time.

“We used to have less frequent
longer leaves on Earth — usually
a fifty per cent system, one month
there, one here. We changed it
originally so as to avoid having our
LG people constantly exposed to
high-grav in acceleration, as well as
to save rocket space, and travel
time, and things like that. After-
wards, we found (mt that we were
getting much easier adjustments
back to LG after the short leave at
three-quarters, instead'of the longer
one on Earth.”

“That makes sense,” she said
thoughtfully. “If you were picking
the people who could take the low
gravity best, they’d maybe have
the most trouble with the accelera-
tion.”

“Yes and no. Strictly, physiologi-
cally, it tends to work that way;
psychologically it’s just the opposite,
usually. And all this is in the pre-

PROJECT NURSEMAID

pared literature too.” He smiled at
her, and determinedly changed the
subject. “Now what weVe got to do
is arrange for your physical. If it’s
all right with you, I’d like to get an
appointment set up right away, for
as soon as possible. Frankly, that’s
going to be your toughest hurdle
here. If you get past that, I don’t
think we’ll have too much more to
worry about. But don’t kid yourself
that it’s going to be easy.”

“I’m pretty healthy. Colonel.”
She smiled comfortably. “My people
were farmers, over there and over
here; I think they call it ‘peasant
stock’? And I’ve been lucky. I al-
ways lived good.”

“For fifty-two years,” he re-
minded her gently. “That’s not old
— but forty is old in SpaServ. Re-
member, the whole reasoning behind
this Project is that if we catch ’em
young enough, we think we can
train the kids to get along under
no-grav conditions. And at your
age, even acceleration can be a prob-
lem. Anyhow — ”

' He stood up, and she started
gathering her coat and purse to-
gether. She was wonderful, he
thought, almost unbelievable, after
most of the others who came in here:
a woman, no more, no less — a famil-
iar, likable, motherly, competent,
womanly kind of woman. When it
came to psych tests {if 'it got that far,
he had to remind himself, as he’d
been trying to remind her), he knew
she’d come up with every imaginable
symptom and psychic disorder . . .

in small, safe quantities. A little of
this, and a little of that, and the
whole adding up to the rare and
“balanced” personality.

“Anyhow,” he. said, “there’s no
sense talking any more till after you
see the Medics.” He led her out to
Helen’s desk, got her appointment
lined up, and made sure she was pro-
vided with duly informative litera-
ture. Then he saw her out, and went
back to his desk, to plot.

The routine report he kept rou-
tine. That was no place to urge spe-
cial allowances or special treatment.
^He mentioned the SpaServ connec-
tfons, of course, but did not empha-
size them. If the General read care-
fully, that would be enough. But he
had to be sure. \

He laid out his strategy with care,
and found two items pending in his
files that would serve his purpose:
neither very urgent, either capable
of assuming an appearance of imme-
diate importance. Satisfied, he went
out to lunch, and from there over
to Henderson College to see the
Dean again. He outlined to her his
conversation with Ceil the day be-
fore — or at least some of it. The
only part of that interview that con-
cerned Sarah Lazarus was in connec-
tion with the young man at the
Academy.

“When I thought it over,” he ex-
plained, “it seemed to me it might
cause some embarrassing questions
all around if I were to approach the
boy myself. I’m not in a position to
say, ‘Personal,’ and not be asked any

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

more. So I wondered if you . .

He let it slide off, waiting to see
what she’d offer.

“What was it exactly you wanted
me to do.f^” she hedged.

“Write to Jiim. That’s all that
would be necessary. They don’t cen-
sor incoming mail there. Or if you’d
rather not have anything down on
the record, a phone call could do it.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I sup-
pose ...” she began slowly, then
made up her mind. “Of course. I’ll
take care of it. What’s the young
man’s name?”

“I’m afraid,” he smiled, “we’ll
have to get Cell’s permission before
I tell you that. I made some power-
ful promises yesterday.”

“I know,” she said, and he looked
at her, startled. “Cecille came in to
see me yesterday evening,,” she ex-
plained, enjoying her moment of
superior knowledge. “She said she
wanted to thank me for — for ‘being
so wonderful,’ I think she said. I
beheve she meant fewr not tossing her
out on her ear as soon as I had heard
the awful trutky

“She comes from a — rather old-
fashioned family?”

“That’s one way of putting it. Her
father is a very brilliant man in his
line of work, I tunderstand — some-
thing technical. He is also a boss-fear-
ing, Hell-fearing, foreigner-fearing,
bigoted, narrow-minded, one-sided,
autocratic, petty, self-centered
domestic tyrant. He spoils his wife
and daughter with pleasure, as long
as they abide by his principles —

and his wife is a flexible, intelli-
gent, family-loving woman who de-
cided a long time ago that his prin-
ciples had better be hers. Yes —
I’d say it was an old-fashioned fam-
ily. A fine family, if you stick to the
rules.”

He nodded. “That’s about the
way I figure it.”

The Dean cleared her throat.
“Anyhow,, Cecille spent an hour or
more with me last night, ^nd after
she got done telUng me how wonder-
ful / was, she started oi) what realty
interested her.”

“She’s already told you about
him? Well, good. That makes it
easier.”

“No.”

Again he was startled, but only for
an instant. He knew what was com-
ing now, and he had time to cover
his responses. Her technique was still
lousy — but maybe it worked qn
her students.

“No,” she said. “The rest Veto all
about you'' She was watching hiin
closely — of course. “I suppose,”
she asked thoughtfully, “that hap-
pens fairly often? A girl in trouble
comes to see yoU, and finds you a
sympathetic savior, and promptly
decides she’s in love?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “I
didn’t think Ceil had quite reached
that stage yet. I was even hoping she
might avoid it.”

“She didn’t put it that way her-
self.”

“It’s annoying most of the time,”
he told her. “Sometimes, it’s flatter-

PROJECT NURSEMAID
»

ing as all hell.” He grinned, and re-
fused further comment; when she
laughed, he thought he detected a
note of rehef. He hoped he had said
enough, and not too much.

“If you want to wait a minute,”
she said, “Fll get her up here now,
and we can get this settled.”

He glanced at his watch. “Fine!”
And it was. Ceil came up, looked in
horror from one to the other, and,
as soon as she could breathe out
again, asked, pleading: ''What's
tvrongr

His own laughter and the Dean’s
mingled, and when the girl had gone
again, much refieved, the faint edge
of doubt or suspicion between the
man and the woman was gone too.
Me promised to get in touch with
her as soon as he heard from the
boy, and got back to his own office
in plenty of time for the afternoon’s
carefully mapped campaign.

About 3:30, and for an hour after-
wards, there was usually a lull in the
General’s afternoon. At 3:45, the
Colonel went upstairs with his
knotty-looking little problem, and
got his expected sequence of re-
sponses: irritation at being bothered
when no bother was looked-for, fol-
lowed by gratification at having so
easily solved a really minor difficulty
the Colonel had apparently been
unable to untangle for himself.

“Takes the organizational mind,
Tom,” the General said jovially. “I
guess you have to get older, though,
before you begin to get the broad
view most of the time. He took his 4

o’clock cigar from the humidor, and
offered one to the Colonel.

“No thanks. I think I’ll have to
get older to appreciate those, too.”
He lit himself a cigarette, and held
the lighter for the other man.

“You’ll get there,” the General
puffed. “See you finally broke
down,” he added, grunting around
the fat cigar. “Let one of those lad-
ies get past you.”

“I got tired of saying no. I’m afraid
she won’t get too far, though.”

The General raised an inquiring
eyebrow. “Haven’t studied the re-
port yet, but looked okay, quick
glance.” Fragrant smoke rolled over
the words, and swallowed up some
of them.

“She’s not youngs' the Colonel
said hesitantly. “I — well, frankly, I
was making some allowance for the
fact that her son and daughter are
stationed in Satellite — ”

“Oh? SpaServ?” He was inter-
ested now.

“The boy is. Five-year hitch, I
think. I thought it might make her
more likely to stick with us, if she
lasts out one year.”

“Tom, you got a positive /j/ent
— ” The General even took the cigar
out of his mouth to indulge himself
in the lately rare luxury of using the
faintly Sou them- Western- home-
folks manner that had done so much
to put him where he was today.
“ — a /^^/ent, I tell you, for seein’
things wrong-end hind-to.”

Edgerly made the politely inquir-
ing sound that was indicated.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Naturally, I mean, we want re-
enlistments. But that’s next year,
and frankly, Tom, off the record, by
the time we can get her up there and
she’s worked a year and had her four *
months’ leave, you and me, we’re
going to be wearing the skin off our
backsides someplace else ^/together.
But don’t get me wrong.” He chuck-
led warmly, and re-inserted the
cigar. “You wan’ make ’lownces, you
make ’em, any reason you want.”

-The Colonel stayed a few more
minutes, till his cigarette was fin-
ished and he could politely leave.
But on the way home, he stopped
down in Medical, and dragged Bill
Sawyer out with him for a drink.

It took two before Bill got around
to it.

“That dame you called us on to-
day — what’s her name, Sorrento.'^”

“Serruto.”

“Yeah. Did you put a bug in the
Old Man’s ear, or what?”

“Me? What kind of bug?”

“Oh, he was dropping gentle hints
all oyer me this, afternoon. R^al
gentle. One of them hit my toe, and
I think the bone’s broken. He thinks
she.ought to pass her Medic.”

“She’f not youngs'" Edgerly said
judiciously.

“No. But she’s got a son in Spa-
Serv, and after all, we do try to
make some allowances, keep "family
together — hell, you know!”

The Colonel grinned. “What you
need is a drink.”

“You know, I never thought of
that!” The doctor chuckled. “Hey!

Remember that babe you were all
steamed up about? Canadian. She’d
lost her forearm . . i?”

“Yeah. Buonaventura. And I still
don’t see what damn difference six-
teen inches of good honest plastic
and wire; instead of flesh and blood
could make on the Moon.”

“Regulations, son, regulations.
That’s what I was thinking about.
Maybe if you could fix it for ^~to
get a son into SpaServ ...”

“About twenty years from now,
you mean?”

“Wc!H, she wasn’t exactly a knock-
out, but she wouldn’t be hard to
take. Maybe I’d cooperate myself.”

“Leave those little things to us
bachelors,” the Colonel said sternly.
“No married man should have to
sacrifice that way for the Service.”

The waiter came with fresh drinks,
and they concentrated on refreshing
themselves for a short time. “Just
the same,” Edgerly said seriously,
“I wish we could get more young
ones like that. . * . I guess it’s six
of one and you-knoiy-what of the
other. The young ones wouldn’t
want to stay more than a year or
maybe two . . . this Buonaventura
gal, for instance. You know, her hus-
band was killed in the same accident
where she lost her arm. Honeymoon
and all that. So she wanted to go be
teal busy for a while, till she could
start thinking about another man.
But any young woman who was
healthy enough in the head to trust
up there would just be putting in
time, the same way . . .”

PROJECT NURSEMAID

“Okay, but these grandmas you’re
sending up aren’t going to be able
to take it more- than one or two
tours, anyhow,” Sawyer put in.

“That’s what I meant. You can’t
>»

win.

“What you need,” said the doc-
tor, “is a drink.”

“You know, that’s an idea. . .

For a little while, there was the
illusion that things were improving,
all around. Tuesday, the same day
Serruto was winding up her 38'houf
session in Medic, there was a letter
from one Adam Barton, asking if an
appointment for the necessary ex-
aminations could be arranged some-
time between November 27 and 30.
Thanksgiving leave, the Colonel
realized, and phoned down himself
to set it up. They’d been trying to
keep the weekend free for the staff,
but this one would have tp go
through.

He managed to keep himself from
asking about Mrs. Serruto; they
wouldn’t have a final answer till late
afternoon. Then, on impulse, he
phoned Sarah Lazarus, and asked her
to have lunch with him.

“Celebration. Space Service owes
you something,” he explained.

“More than you know,” she re-
plied, but wouldn’t say any more on
the phone, except to suggest that in
her own opinion she was entitled to
a good lunch.

Over hor d’oeuvres, and remains

of a ladylike Dubonnet, she ex-
plained: she had neither written nor
telephoned to Barton-Bolido; she
had gone to see him instead.

“When I thought it over, it
seemed too awkward any other
way,” , she said. “It’s only about a
three hour drive, and I understood
they had visiting Sunday after-
noon.”

“We can reimburse you for the
expense,” the Colonel offered. “We
have a special fund for that kind of
thing. . . .”

“So do she said. “The ex-
pense was the least of it. If you
could reimburse me for the — what

do they call it — ‘mental agony’

‘

• • • •

“I take it you had something of a
heart-to-heart talk?” He was very
genuinely curious. “Is Ceil’s impres-
sion of him anywhere near accu-
rate?”

“7 don’t know what Ceil’s impres-
sions are,” she said drily. “Which
kind of evens the score, doesn’t it?”
She attacked a casserole of beef-
burgundy saute, with apparent un-
interest in continuing the conversa-
tion.

“All right,” he laughed. “I sur-
render. One betrayal deserves an-
other. He wouldn’t be very likely to
talk to me^ you know.” He told her
what the girl had said, and she
nodded.

“That’s about it — except he
happens to be crazy about her, so
this bit of news has really got him in
a tizzy. He’d managed to ‘forget’

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

about her, he said, since the sum-
mer ^ — convincing himself that it
was best to let the whole thing drop
— don’t see her any more, don’t
write — you know? And it makes
sense. He does have his handsome
little heart set on SpaServ — see,
I’m learning the lingo? I’ll have the
pastry,” she told the waiter, with no
change of tone or tempo. “Anyhow,
he can’t marry for the next two
years, till he graduates. And after
that, there’s a four-year . . .
hitch?”

He nodded soberly.

“Hitch, before he can even hope
to get permission to have his family
with him, wherever he is — pro-
vided it’s some place where he can
have a family.”

“It will be,” he told her. “Policy
is shaping up that way. They’re en-
couraging wives to go up Satellite,
now, and any station with enough
gravs for moderate good health will
be opened for families as fast as pos-
sible. The boys seem to last longer
that way, and work better.”

She was interested. He would have
hked to hear more about Charles,

■ but that was personal curiosity,
which would in any case be satisfied
later on. There was more urgent
business for this luncheon, and it was
already getting late. He answered
her questions, more or less com-
pletely but always with a direction
in mind, and eventually they came
round to the Foster Parent problem.

“I’m sweating one out today,” he
told her. “Maybe that’s why I de-

cided to use you as an excuse for a
good lunch. It’s not easy to find the
right people, and half the time, when
I do get someone I’m satisfied with,
she can’t get past the Medics. Stands
to reason: the kind I want are likely
to have led pretty busy lives, and
mostly they run to older women —
oldy that is, in SpaServ terms —
forty and fifty. The one I’m waiting
to hear about is fifty-two. If her
heart will stand up to blastoff ac-
celeration, she may make it. But you
never know what kind of ruination
those boys can pull out of their in-
fernal machines.”

“What you need is a good old-
fashioned diagnostician,” she said,
laughing. “The kind that looked you
over and told you in five minutes
what. was wrong — and turned out
to be right.”

He shook his head sadly. “We’re
not even allowed to do that in psych
clinics any more. If you can’t tab it
up on IBM or McBride cards, it
just ain’t so.” He sipped at his coffee,
which was cold, but — by design —
not yet empty. “I’ll tell you what we
do need, though,” he said seriously.

“What?”

“More Foster Parents.”

She gave him that studying- look
again. “Just what is it you’re trying
to tell me. Colonel?”

“Nothing at all,” he said steadily,
returning her look. “Just chit-chat
over lunch. I did have a notion
about how to publicize our problem
in the quarters where it might do
the most good: educators, social

PROJECT NURSEMAID

workers, people like that. But I
haven’t been able to get official au-
thorization for it yet, so . .

Deliberately, he paused and
sipped again at the cold coffee. ,
. so naturally, this is all just idle
talk. I’m not trying to tell you any-
thing; I’m just answering your ques-
tions.”

She was sipping her own coffee
when he tried to get a look at her
face. When he dropped her off at the
College, she hadn’t revealed any re-
action. They said a friendly goodby,
and he thanked her again for her
efforts with the young man, then
drove back fast. It was mid-after-
noon already, and the report on Mrs,
Serruto —

The report was on his desk when
he got back. He read it through,
and sank back in his chair to find out
what it felt like to relax.

The General had given him till
October 9 to find a satisfactory FP.
Today was the seventh.

He swiveled his chair around to
look out the window, at the wide
sweep of the mountain range, the
dark shapes, green-blue and purple,
pushing up into the pale-blue sky
of the mesa country. Life was good.
For some minutes, he did nothing
at all but fill his vision with color
and form, and allow his excellent
lunch to be digested. Finally he
turned back to the desk and riffled
through papers in the Hold basket
till he found the Schedule that had
come with the General’s last Memo.

Mrs. Serruto would be ready for

the rocket on December 9. They
didn’t have to have another one till
January 6. After that, one on each
biweekly shipment, at least through
February.

January 6, less two months’ train-
ing, left him 30 days. Serruto had
been bfind luck; he couldn’t count
on that again. He buzzed Helen,
and dictated a brief Memo for the
General, asking for a conference,
soon, on his proposals about public-
ity. Halfway through, the phone
rang in the outer office. He picked it
up on his desk, and it was Sarah
Lazarus.

God is on my side he thought. He
had hardly expected to hear from
her so soon, after her stubbornly
noncommittal silence during lunch.

She had enjoyed the luncheon,
she said, and wanted to thank him
again.

“You earned it,” he told her.
“Besides which, the pleasure was at
least half mine.” Or will be^ when you
get around to whales on your
mind, ...

“The other thing I wanted to adc
you about,” she said, “was whether
Thanksgiving weekend would be all
right for our girl’s visit?”

Not with the Medics it wouldn’t,
but he assured her it would. They
had the boy coming in that Friday
anyhow. The Colonel mentally apol-
ogized to God for his presumption.

“You said five days, I think?”

“Fi — oh, for the . . . visit. Yes.
She ought to he here two days ahead
of time, and then it’s usually best to

3 ^

wait at least two days afterwards.*-
“Well — maybe she*d better
come in at the beginning of the
week. That will give her a chance to
get dramatically ill in class. And it
will work out better when I tell her
parents, I think.’*

“Any way you want it,** he^ as-
sured her. “It*s far enough ahead
so the schedule’s pretty open. Es-
pecially with our present curtail-
ments . . .” He waited.

“Oh, yes,” she said.. “That’s right,
rd forgotten.” Then, very sweetly,
she asked him if he would care to
come to dinner at her home on
Saturday evening.

It's your deal, lady, \e, thought;
all he could do was pick up the cards
and play them as they came.

“(^ktails start at -six,” she said,
and gave him an address. He hung
up, trying to remember whether he
had ever heard any reference to a
Mr. Lazarus. That cocktail-chatter
sounded like a big party, but her
tone of voice didn’t. He shrugged,
and turned^^back to his secretary,
who was waiting with an inevitable
expression of intelligent detachment.

“Make a note. Sergeant. Remind
me to buy a black tie. I’m in the
social whirl now.*^

She made the note, too. Nothing
he could do now would save him
from being reminded. He favored
the Perfect Lady Soldier with a
look of mingled awe,* horror, and
affection, and' got on with the busi-
ness of dictating his reminder to the
General. . . ,

FANTASY AND SCLENCE FICTION

Brigadier General Harlan Foley
Martin, U.N.S.S., resplendent in
full unijform, with the blazing-sun
insigne of SpaServ shining on his
cap, was conducting a party of visi-
tors through his personal domain:
the newest, cleanest, finest building
in the entire twenty-seven acres that
made up the North American Moon
Base Supply ^ Depot — which was
beyond doubt the biggest, cleanest,
fastest and generally bestest Depot
anywhere on Earth.

It was of particular importance
that these (self-evident) facts should
be brought to the attention of the
visitors, against the time when they
returned to their respective Depots
in South Africa, North Asia, and
Australia, to establish similar centers
in which to carry oiit their share of
the important and inspiring work of
Project Nurseftiaid,

Half a dozen duly humble seekers
after knowledge followed at his
heels (metaphorically spcajking; in
actual practice, the General po-
litely ushered them ahead of him
through doors and narrow passage-
ways), drinking in wisdom, observ-
ing efficiency, and uttering appro-
priate expressions of admiration.

The, General felt it was time for a
bit of informality, and there was no
better way than in a display of that
indifference to rank and protocol for
which the Normerican Section was
famous. Accordingly, he headed
straight for the office of his Psy-
chological Aide, Colonel Edgerly.
There were times when it was possi-

PROJECT NURSEMAID

ble to place a good deal of faith in the
Colonel’s judgment and behavior.

Edgerly rose to the occasion. He
showed them through his Depart-
ment, explained the psych-testing
equipment in three languages, and
excused himself from accompanying
them further on account of the press
of his own work.

In the waiting room, as they took
leave of the Colonel, the General
drew the attention of the visiting
gentlemen away from the admirable
example of Normerican soldiery be-
hind the reception desk with a
typical display of typical Normeri-
can informality.

“Oh, by the way, Tom, before I
forget it — ^ I’ve been too busy the
last day or two, but I saw your
Memo on that idea of yours, and I
want the two of us to get together
some time and talk it over. Sofni
time soon . . .” He smiled, and the
Colonel smiled back.

“Well, let’s set up a date now.”
Edgerly turned to the Sergeant be-
hind the desk.

“Oh, no need for that, Tom. Just
give me a ring, or I’ll drop in on you.
Any time, any time at all. . . .”

The General and his party pro-
ceeded to examine the hospital
facilities^ on a lower floor.

Colonel Edgerly reknotted his
tie, adjusted the angle of his cap,
and stepped out of his car in front of
one of the city’s better apartment
houses. A doorman led him to the
proper elevator, and pushed the ap-

propriate button for him. He
stepped but into a foyer done in
walnut wood and cream-colored
plaster. As the elevator door closed,
a chime rang softly in a room behind
the 'floral-printed draperies, and he
had hardly time to savor the nostal-
gia the decor had produced before
his hostess pulled the drapes aside
and asked him in.

She was wearing a black dinner
dress that displayed, among other
things, a rather different personality
from the one she wore in her office.
However, there was a Mr. Lazarus,
and five or six other guests besides.

They drank cocktails and en-
gaged in party conversation until
one more couple arrived. The dinner
was well-cooked and well-served,
and eaten to the accompaniment of
some remarkably civilized table talk,
plus an excellent wine and subdued
background music. Afterwards,
three more couples came in, and by
the time the last of them arrived,
the Colonel’s opinion of his hostess
— already improved by her home,
her dress, her food and drink — had
reached a peak of admiration and
appreciation. Out of thirteen per-
sons present that evening, every one
except three escorting husbands —
every other one was an upper-eche-
lon executive of some social service
agency, woman’s club, child care
organization, or adult educational
center.

The Colonel d^ not proselytize,
nor did he mention any special diffi-
culties the Project was having. There

Was no need to do either. The guests
that evening had come specifically
to meet him, because they were
curious and interested and felt
themselves inadequately informed
about Project Nursemaid. He had
nothing to do but answer eager in-
telligent questions put to him by
alert and understanding people —
and in the course of answering, it
took no more than an occasional
shift of emphasis to convey quite
clearly that th^ Project’s capacity
for handling PN’s must necessarily
depend in large part on its success in
finding satisfactory Foster Parents.

“Did you say before that you
preferred older women for these
jobs. Colonel?” He looked around
for the questioner: a slim tailored
woman with a fine-drawn face and
dean dear skin; she looked as
though she belonged on a country
estate with dogs and horses and a
prize-winning garden. For the mo-
ment, he couldn’t remember her
name, or which outfit she was con-
nected with.

“No. Not at all. If I mentioned
anything like that, it should have
been by way of complaint. The fact
is that most of the people who satisfy
our other requirements are older
women — older in SpaServ terms,
anyhow. Most of our candidates are,
for that matter. Women under the
age of forty, if they’re healthy well-
balanced personalities, are either
busy raising th^r own families, or
else they’re even busier looking for
the right man to get started with.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

From the Medical viewpoint, weM
a lot rather get younger people. And
for that matter, I think they might
suit our purposes better all around
— the right kind, that is.”

“I see. I was particularly inter-
ested, because we’ve been doing
some intensive work lately on the
problem of jobs for women over
thirty-five, and I thought if we knew
just what you wanted . . . ?” She
let it drift off into a pleasant white-
toothed smile, one feathery eyebrow
barely raised to indicate the ques-
tion-mark at the end. He remem-
bered now — Jan^ Somebody, from
Aptitudes, Inc., the commercial
guidance outfit. He struggled for the
last name.

“I think Miss Sommers has a good
point there. Colonel.” This was the
dumpy little woman with the bright
black eyes, sitting on the hassock
across from him. Sommers^ thafs
right! Next time Til put Sergeant
Gregory in my pocl^t to taJ^e notes, “I
hate to pester you so much on your
night out, but I think several of us
here might Be able to send you peo-
ple occasionally, if we knew a little
more about just what you want.”

This one he remembered : she was
the director of the Beth Shalom
Family Counseling Service. “Be-
lieve me, Mrs. Goldman, I can’t
think of any way I’d rather be pes-
tered. I just wish I’d known before-
hand what I was getting into. I’d
have come prepared with a mimeo-
graphed list of requirements to hand
out at the door.” With complete

PROJECT NURSEMAID

irfelevance, the thought flashed
through his mind that the Sergeant
never had reminded him about that
black tie. You're slipping^ old girl! he
thought, and smiled at Mrs. Gold-
man. “As it is — well, it takes about
a week to complete the testing of an
applicant. If I tried to tell you in de-
tail what we want, Mrs. Lazarus
might get tired of our company after
a while. I think you probably know
in general what personality types are
suitable for that kind\of work. Be-
yond that, probably it would work
better for you to ask any specific
questions you have in mind, and let
me try to answer them.”

“Well, I wondering — are you
only taking women, or are you inter-
ested in men too? There’s one couple
I had in mind; they’re young and
healthy and what psychological
problems they’ve got are all centered
on the fact that they can’t have any
kids of their own, and because he’s
a free-lance artist with no steady in-
come, they can’t adopt one. I think
they might like to go, for a year or
two . . . ?”

There was no point in telling her
that the chances were a thousand to
one they’d never pass the psychs.
Nobody had ever proved that most
cases of sterility were psychogenic,
but the Project had, so far, built up
some fascinating correlations be-
tween certain types of sexual fears
and childlessness; and then the “free-
lance artist” ... He satisfied him-
self with answering the question
she’d asked, and the other impor-

tant one implied in her last sentence.

“We’d be delighted to have
couples, if we can get them. We
haven’t taken any men so far, but
we’ve got a couple on our reserve
list. We want them later on, but for
the immediate future, we need
women in the nursery. One other
point, though . . . what you said
about ‘a year or two.’

“We’re signing people up for one-
year contracts. One year’s duty,
and four months’ leave, that is.
We’re doing it that way for several
reasons: we want to be able to retest
everyone medically before^ we re-
new contracts; and we want to check
actual records of behavior on duty
and psychosomatic responses against
our psych tests. A few other things,
too, but all of ’em boil down to the
fact that we thinl{^ we know what
we’re doing, but we’re not sure yet.
However —

“If it weren’t for the special prob-
lems of LGT, we’d — ^'well, obvi-^
ously, if it weren’t for those prob-
lems, the Project wouldn’t be neces-
sary at all — but since it is necessary,
we’re still hampered by the same
limitations. We’d like to provide
permanent Foster Parents for each
group of children. We can’t do that,
for the same reason we can’t just
send whole families up there: the,
adults can’t take it that Ibng. Even
with the present leave system, five
years is probably going to be the
maximum — five years duty, that
is, with four month intervals on
Earth between each tour.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Right at this point, we’re just
not in a position to insist that any-
one who goes should agree to put in
the maximum number of tours — I
mean whatever maximum the Medics
decide on for the individual person.
We can’t do it, because it’s more
important just to get people up
there. But we would if we could.”

He broke off, uncomfortably
aware that he was monopolizing the
floor. “I’m sorry. I seem to be mak-
ing a speech. . . .”

“Well, go ahead and make it,”
Mrs. Lazarus said easily. “It’s a
pretty good one.”

“I’m just letting off steam,” he
laughed. “This is iny pet frustration.
Right now, the Project, or our di-
vision, has the specific job of sup-
plying personnel, and we’re not sup-
posed to worry about the continua-
tion of the Project five or ten years
from now. But I’m the guy who’s
supposed to pick the right people to
do the job — and I cant pick them
without thinking in terms of what
will happen to those kids when
theyTe five years old and fifteen and
twenty.”

“I think T understand your diffi-
culty a little bit, Colonel.” It was a
quiet, very young-sounding voice
from across the room. “We have
something of the same problem to
face.” He picked her out now: the
nun. Mother Mary Paul. One of
the orders specializing in social
work; Martha . . . ? Yes: Order of
Martha of Bethany. “Some of the
children who come to us are or-

phans; others are from homes tern-
porarily unable to care for them;
some are day students; some are
students who live in the convent.
Most of them, in one way or another,
are from homes where they have not
received — well, quite as much as
one might hope a happy home could
provide. We want to give them the
feeling of having a home with us —
and yet, we know that most of them
will be leaving us and going to their
own families, or adopted families,
or other schools. It’s — rather a
harder job, I think, to give a small
child a sense of security and of be-
longings when you know yourself
that the time will come when the
child must be handed over to some-
one else’s care. I know I tend to de-
mand a good deal more of the sisters
going into orphanage work than of
a family quaUfyiirg for adoption.”

“You’ve said that better than I
could have — ” What were you sup-
posed to call her? Not Sister; he
gathered she was too high up in her
order. Mother? Your Reverence? He
compromised by omitting any title,
and hoped the omission was not an
offense. “About the sense of belong-
ing. Ideally, of course, the children
should be in families, with perma-
nent adoptive parents. But we have
to juggle the needs of the children
against the limitations of the adults.
The kids need permanence; but
the grownups just can’t last long
enough under the conditions. So to
even up the books, an FP, Foster
Parent, has to be something pretty

PROJECT NURSEMAID

Special: a mature woman with the
health of a young girl — a sane and
balanced personality just sufficiently
off keel to want to go to the Moon —
someone with the devotion of a nun,
who has no very pronounced doc-
trinal beliefs ... I could go on
and on like that, but what it all
comes down to is that the kind of
people we want are useful and pro-
ductive right here on Earth, and
mostly much too busy to think
about chafing off to'the Moon.”

There was a general laugh, and
people started moving about, shift-
ing groups, debating the wisdom of
one more drink. The Colonel de-
bated not at all. He took a refill
happily, and turned away from the
bar to find himself being converged
upon. Mrs. Goldman, Mother Mary
Paul, and a Dr. Jonas Lutwidge,
.pastor of the local Episcopal Church,
and a big wheel of some kind in the
city’s interdenominational social
welfare organization.

They did not exactly all speak at
once, but the effect was the same:
What, they wanted to know,^had he
meant by “no pronounced doctrinal
beliefs.?”

The Colonel drank deeply, and
began explaining, grateful that this
bad come up, if it had to, in a small
group, and equally glad that he had
thoughtfully provided himself with
a double shot of whisky in this glass.

The broad view first: “. . . you
realize that there will be, altogether,
one thousand babies involved in this
Project. Two hundred of them will

come through our Depot. The rest
will be from every part of the world,
from every nation^ty, every faith,
every possible variation of political
and social background. The men
and women who care for them, and
who educate them, will not neces-
sarily be from the same backgrounds
at all. . . .” And world government
being still new, and human beings
still very much creatures of habit
and custom, there was no guarantee
that bias and discrimination could
be ruled out in the Project except by
the one simple device that would
make anything of the sort impossible.

From the individual viewpoint:
“These kids are going to grow up in
an environment almost entirely
alien, from the Earth viewpoint.
They’ll spend their time half on
Moon Base, and half on the rio-grav
training ship. They won’t have par-
ents, in the sense in which we use the
term, or families, or relatives — or
any of the other factors that go to
forming the human personality.
Maybe we could grow us a thousand
supermen this way, but frankly
we don’t want to find out. We
might not li/^ them; they might
even not like us. . . Therefore
every effort was going to be made to
provide a maximum of artificial
“family”'life. The babies would be
assigned, shortly after birth, to a
group of five “brothers and sisters”;
Foster Parents in the group would
necessarily change from time to
time, but whenever a contract was
renewed, the parent would go back

to the same group. There would be
a common group-designation, to be
used as a last name; even first names
were to be given by the first FP to
assume the care of each baby. “It’s
all part of what you were saying be-
fore, Mother,” he pointed out.
“We want the Foster Parents to
feel and act as much as possible as if
these were their own children; un-
fortunately, the physical setup is
such that the opportunities to create
such situations are few enough. We
have to use every device we can.”

Obviously, under these circum-
stances, religious training could not be
given in accordance with the child’s
ancestry. The solution finally decided
upon' had been to invite all religious
groups to select representatives to
participate in the children’s educa-
tion. They would all be exposed to
every form of religious belief, and
could choose among them. A com-
promise at best — and one that
could work only by a careful system
of checks and balances, arid by
making certain, insofar 'as possible,
that the proselytizing was done only
by the official representatives, and
not by evangelical Foster Parents.

Mother Mary Paul and Mrs.
Goldman both seemed tentatively
satisfied with the explanation. Dr.
Lutwidge was inclined to argue, but
Sarah Lazarus came to the Colonel’s
rescue with a polite offer of coffee
whicfi drew their attention to the
noticeable absence of the other
guests.

It was almost i o’clock when Ed-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

gerly got home, in a glow of pleased
excitement, and in no mood for bed.
He stalked through the four rooms
of his bachelor cottage, surveying
everything with profound distaste,
and sat up for an hour more, making
sketches and notes about the im-
provements he meant to effect.
Next morning, on his way to work,
he stopped at a florist’s for the brown
jug and yellow roses that he had felt,
all evening, should have been oil the
table in that foyer. Briefly, he de-
bated drawing on the Special Ac-
count to cover the cost, and decided
against it; he had made his gesture
now toward Better Living, and
could leave his own home alone.

Within a week, the number of
FP applicants in his office began to
increase; within three weeks, he
had another successful candidate.
His working day, which had for a
short time been quiet and peaceful,
resumed its normal place, an hour or
two behind schedule. And if the
General still had failed to authorize
the publicity campaign which the
Colonel had already unofficially ini-
itiated, at least the Old Man had
done nothing to impede it, and was
showing a remarkable tendency to
stay entirely out of the Psych
Dept.’s hair.

This was good, up to a point. But
by the middle of November, when
the first rush of applicants referred
by the Dean’s friends had begun to
diminish anddie had found only one
more acceptable candidate, the Colo-

-PROJECT NURSEMAID

fiel began to feel the need of an
official authorization that would
make it possible to carry his cam-
paign farther abroad. The people
he’d ^net were all local; some had
state- wide influence, others only in
the immediate area. The Depot
represented a territory that covered
all of what had once been Canada,
Alaska, and the U. S. A., plus part
of Mexico.

The Colonel chafed a while, then
sent another Memo, asking for a
conference on his suggestions of five
weeks ago. For some days afterwards,
he watched arid waited for a re-
sponse. Then another satisfactory
applicant turned up, and he was
busy with psych- tests and briefing
interviews for the better part of a
week. He checked off the second
January rocket on his schedule,
and offered up a brief prayer to
whatever Deity had been looking
out for him, that another such
woman should come his way before
the third of December.

And then it was Thanksgiving
week.

Monday afternoon. Ceil Chanute
was admitted to the Project infir-
mary. Tuesday morning. Dean Laza-
rus called to report that she had in-
formed the girl’s family of her ill-
ness, and had successfully headed off
any efforts at coming out to visit her.
-Wednesday morning, the day her
operation was scheduled, the Colonel

came in early and had breakfast with
Ceil in the Med staff room. He saw
no reason to tell her that this was
standard practice whenever possi-
ble, and when he went upstairs he
was basking in the glow of her evi-
dent pleasure at what she thought
a special attention.

He spent most of the morningi
dealing swiftly and efficiently with
correspondence; the only time he
hesitated was over one handwritten
letter, from a town a hundred miles
away. This he reread carefully, then
slid it into his pocket, to handle per-
sonally later on.

At 4:30 that afternoon Ruth
Mackintosh came in. She was the
most recent of his successful candi-
dates, now in her first week of regu-
lar training, and part of the process
was a daily hour in his office, mostly
to talk over any problems or ques-
tions of hers — partly to dlow him
continuous observation of her prog-
ress and her attitudes.

At five-oh-four the Sergeant, out
at the desk, buzzed him with the
news that the operation on the
Chanute girl was completed, with-
out complications, and she would be
.coming out of anesthesia shortly.
The Colonel repeated the news for
his visitor’s benefit, explaining that
he might have to leave in a hurry, if
, Ceil began to wake up.

“Oh, of course — maybe you’d
rather go down now?”

He would. For some idiotic rea-
son, he said instead: “It’ll be ten or
fifteen minutes anyhow.”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

46.

“I wish rd known, she said. “I
was going to ask you if I could see
an operation before I went up?’*

That was a new one. “Have you
ever watched an operation before?”

“Well, I used to be a practical
nurse; I’ve seen plenty of home de-
liveries, and I saw a Caesarian done
once — oh, you mean, will it upset
me? No.” She laughed. “I 'don’t
think so.”

That wasn’t what he’d meant.
“Why do you want to see it?” he
asked slowly. With some people the
best way to get an answer was to ask
a direct question.

“I don’t know — I Just want to
see as much as I can, know as much
as I can about the babies and what’s
happened to them already, and
where they come from, and — if
you people weren’t so obviously
oriented in the opposite direction.
I’d want to meet the mothers, too,
as many as I could.”

Wonderful — if true. He scrib-
bled a note to check over certain of
her tests for repressed sadistic lean-
ings, and told her: “We’re not
oriented the other way entirely. In
fact, we’ve changed our feeling
about that several times already.
Just now, I don’t think it would be
possible for you to meet any of the
parents, but I think we can manage
a pass to see a Section performed.
I’ll check.”

He reached for the phone, but it
buzzed before he could get to it. He
listened, and turned back to Mrs.
Mackintosh.

“I’m afraid I am going to have to
run out on you.” He stood up. “The
kid downstairs is coming out of it
now — you understand?”

“Of course.” She stood up, and
followed him to the door. “Do you
want me to wait, or . . . ?”

“If you’d like to. Check with
Sergeant Gregory here. She’ll give
you all the dope about getting that
pass. And if you want to wait, that’s
fine, unless the Sergeant says I’m
going to be busy. She knows better
than I do.” He wanted to get out the
other door and downstairs. The
feeling of urgency was unreasonable,
but it was there. “Helen,” he said
briskly, “you get things worked out
with Mrs. Mackintosh. I’ll be down-
stairs if you want me. Sorry to
rush off like this,” he told the other
woman again. “Helen’ll set up an-
other appointment for us. Or wait
if you want.” Thafs the third time /
said that, he thought irritably, and
stopped trying to make sense, or to
say anything at all.

He had the satisfaction, at least,
as he went out the door, of one quick
glimpse of the Perfect Lady Soldier,
out of control. Helen was flabber-
gasted . . . and it showed.

Waiting for the elevator, he won-
dered what she thought. Going
down in the elevator, he was sure he
knew. And striding down the corri-
dor on the hospital floor, he -was dis-
mayed to consider that she might
possibly be right.

He had some news for Ceil Cha-
nute, tucked away in his jacket

PROJECT NURSEMAID

pocket — news He had withheld all
morning, uncertain what effect it
might have on her, and therefore un-
willing to dehver it before the oper-
ation. True enough, he ought to be
on hand when she woke up; it mi^t
be what she’d want to hear. True,
but not true enough — not enough
to warrant his indecent haste.

' He made himself slow down be-
fore he reached the nurse’s cubicle
outside the Infirmary. When he
went inside, he had already made
up his mind that his concern about
his own behavior was ridiculous any-
how. An occasional extra show of
interest in an individual case — any
case — was not necessarily the same
thing as an unprofessional personal
involvement.

Not necessarily, echoed a sneaky,
cynical voice in the back of his
mind.

He reached the bed, and aban-
doned introspection. She was awake,
not yet entirely clear-minded, but
fully conscious. He sat down on the
chair right next to her head, and
picked up her limp hand.

“How’s the girl.?^”

“I’ll live.” She managed a sort of a
smile.

“Feeling bad,?”

“All right . . ”

“Hungry.?”

She shook her head.

“Thirsty.?” She hesitated, then
nodded. “Water.? Tea.? Lemonade.?
Ginger ale.?” She just smiled, fuzzily.
The nurse, standing at the foot of
the bed, looked to him for decision.

“Tea,” he said, but the girl shook
her head. “Something cold,” she
murmured.

The nurse went away, and the
Colonel leaned back in the chair,
to an angle where he could watch
her face without making her uncom-
fortably aWare of it. “I’ve got some
news for you,” he said.

She turned her head to look at
him, suddenly worried.

“Take it easy, kid. If it was any-
thing bad, I wouldn’t tell you now.
Just that you’ll have some com-
pany tonight — if you want to.”

“Company . . . .?” Her eyes went
wide, and she seemed to come out of
the postoperative daze entirely.
‘Wo/ my motherr'

“Nope. Gentleman who gave his
name as Adam Barton.”

It took her a moment to connect;
then she gasped, and said uneasily,
“How did he know — .? But how
could he get here tonight? Isn’t he
at school.? How — ”

“One at a time. He’s coming for
his physical on Friday. I guess Dean
Lazarus told him you were being
operated on today. I had a note
from him this morning.” He took it
out of his pocket, and held it out,
but she shook her head in vigorous
refusal. “Look, kid: he’s leaving
there at five this evening; left al-
ready. He’ll be here about eight, and
he’s going to phone when he gets in.
He’d like to see you.”

She didn’t say anything, but he
could see the frowning intensity
of her face. “Do you want to see

him, Ceil? It’s up to you, you know.
I thought — in case you wanted to,
you might like to know about it
right away, when you woke up.
But . . .”

‘Wo/”

“Whatever you want, gal. I
wouldn’t decide right away, if I
were you. He’ll phone when he gets
in. ril tell the nurse to check with
you then.”

“No,” she said again, less vio-
lently, but just as certainly. “No.
She doesn’t have to ask me. Just tell
him no.”

“Okay. If you change your mind,
tell her before eight. Otherwise,
she’ll tell him «o, just like the lady
said. Here’s your drink.” He took
the cold glass from the nurse’s hand,
and put it on the table. “Can you
sit up?” She tried. “Here.” He
lifted her head, cradling her shoul-
ders in his arm, and helped her
steady the glass with his other hand.
It didn’t feel like anything special.
She was female, which was nice, and
well-shaped, which was better. Oth-
erwise, he couldn’t find any signs of
great emotion or excitement in him-
self. He eased her down gently, and
stood up.

“Fll be around till 6 if you want
me,” he said. “Anything you get a
yen for, tell the nurse. If she can’t
fix you up, she’ll call Colonel Ed-
gerly, of the Special Services Dept.
We aim to please. The patient is
always right. If you want to get sat
up some more, you can use the
nurse, but it’s more fun if I do it.”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

She giggled weakly, and the nurse
produced a tolerant smile. Out in
the hall, he left instructions about
the phone call. “She may change
her mind,” he finished. “Nobody
says No that hard unless they want to
say Yes at the same time. Let me
know if she has any sudden change of
mood — up or down. I’ll be at my
home phone all evening, if you want
me or if she does.”

Going back in the elevator, he
didn’t worry about his own emo-
tions; he pondered instead on what
“Adam Barton’s” must be.

She lay flat on her back in the neat
hard white bed, and felt nothing at
all. Delicately, she probed inside
herself, but there was no grief and
no gladness; not even anger; not
even love. It was all over, and here
she was, and that was that;. After a
^while, she’d be getting up out of the
bed, and everything would be just
the same as before.

No. Not quite everything. They
had taken out more than the — the
baby. She thought the words,
thought them as words. Baby, They
had taken out more than that,
though. Whatever it was Charlie
had meant, that was gone too. Out.
Amputated. Cut away.

She couldn’t see him, because he
would be a stranger. She didn’t
know him. She wouldn’t know what
to say to him, or how to talk. What
had happened long ago had hap-
pened to a different girl, and to
some man she didn’t know.

PROJECT NURSEMAID

Adam Barton!

Her hand came down hard on. the
mattress, and jarred her, so that she
became aware of pain. That was a
relief. At least she could feel some'
thing. She saw the clenched fist of
the hand, and was astonished: it
hadn’t fallen on the bed; she’d hit
the mattress with her fist!

Why.?

She couldn’t remember what she
was thinking about when she did it.
The pain in her pelvis was more
noticeable now, too, and no longer
something to be grateful for.

She didn’t remember calling the
nurse, but somebody in a white
uniform handed her a pill, and lifted
her head so she could sip some water.

He was right. It was more fun
when he did it. She wished he would
come back. She wanted him to
stroke her head, the way her daddy
used to do when she was very little,
and then she was waking up, and
very hungry.

The nurse came in right away; she
must have been watching through
the glass wall at the end of the room.
But when she brought the tray,
there was nothing on it except some
junket and a glass of milk. When
she insisted she was still hungry, the
nurse agreed doubtfully to some
orange juice. Then she lay there
with nothing to do but dream about
a full meal, and try to sort out mem-
ories: The terrible moment when
they put the cone over her face in
the operating room — the dazed
first wakening — the Colonel . . .

“Nurse!”

The white uniform popped
through the door.

“What time is it?”

“Seven twenty-four.”

“Oh. Is — Colonel Edgerly
wouldn’t be here now, would he?”

“No. But he left word for us to
call if you wanted him.”

“Oh, no. It’s not important. > It
can wait.” It wasnt important; it
wasn’t even thing. It was just —
just wanting to know if he was there.
No, it wasn’t, because she felt better
now. It was wanting to know he
hadn’t forgotten about her. Well^ he
didn tl she scolded herself happily^
He wouldn’t, either. He wasn’t the
kind of man who took on responsi-
bilities and then walked out on them,
like . . .

LiJ^ I did, she thought suddenly.

The telephone out in the nurse’s
room was ringing. It cut off half-way
through the second ring. She listened,
but you couldn’t hear the nurse’s
voice through the wall. He could be
calling to find out how she was. Or
her father — if her father knew . . .

She giggled, because her^ father
would bawl her out for daydreaming
and “woolgathering.” That’s what
he called it when he talked to her,
but she’d heard him telling her
mother once, when he didn’t know
she could hear, “Mental masturba-
tion, that’s all it is! Poking around
inside herself till she wears herself
out. There’s no satisfaction in it, and
all it does is make you want more of
the same. Plenty of good men, men

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

with ability, starving to death right
now because they couldn’t stop
themselves from doing just that.”
It was funny how she remembered
the words, and just the way he’d
said them; it was years and years ago,
and she’d hardly understood it at
the time. “If that girl spent half the
time thinking about what she's doing
that she does worrying about what
she already did and dreaming about
what she’s going to do,” he’d fin-
ished indignantly, “then I wouldn’t
worry about her at all!”

He was right, she thought tiredly,
and a moment later she thought it
again, more so, because she remem-
bered that it was Charlie who had
called. She should have talked to
him; she could have done that much,
at least. She’d been lying here
thinking he was the kind of person
who walked out on his responsibili-
ties, and that w^n’t fair, because
she didn’t know what he would have
done if she’d told him.

Well, why didn’t I tell him? she
wondered, and . . .

Stop iti she told herself. If you
have a toothache, you won't make it
better by worrying it with your tongue
all the time.

Her father bad said that, too, she
remembered, and suddenly she was
furious. Thais not what I was doing,
she told, him coldly, but she didn’t
try to explain, not to him. Only
there was a difference. She wasn’t
just worry- warting or daydreaming
now; she was trying to find out why
— a lot of why's.

That was the way thought, all
the time: Why? It was thinking that
way that made him the kind of per-
son he was. . . .

She giggled again. Every time she
thought about him, she thought he,
and never a name. Colonel didn’t fit
at all, and Mister wasn’t right, and
just plain Edgerly was silly, and she
didn’t dare think Tom,

The nurse came to give her a pill.

“Is that to make me go to sleep
she asked warily.

“It’s a sedative,” the nurse said,
as if that was different.

“I slept all day,” she said. “Will
it bother anybody if I read a while.f^”
She didn’t want to read, especially,
but she didn’t want to sleep yet
either. The nurse handed her the
pill, and held out the water, and
obediently, because she didn’t know
how to_argue about it, she lifted her
head and swallowed twice. When
she moved like that, she remembered
what it was she was trying so hard
not to think about. It didn’t hurt so
much any more, but there was a
kind of empty^ache.

The nurse turned on her bed light,
and got some magazines from the
table across the room. “If you want
anything, the bell’s in back of you,”
she said.

Ceil let her hand be guided to the
button, but there was something she
wanted right now. “Was it — ” she
started, and tried again. “What
was it?"

“It’s a boy,’^ the nurse said, and
laughed. “Or anyhow, it will be.

PROJECT NURSEMAID

we think. You can’t always tell for
sure so soon.”

Is .. . will be .

Her head was swimming, from the
pill probably.

Not was. Will be.

It's alive^ she thought. 7 didn't
kill it. She smiled, and sank back
into the pillow, but when she woke
up she was crying, and she couldn’t
stop.

VII

The phone woke him at 3:43,
according to the luminous figures
on the dark clock-face. By the same
reckoning, he had had exactly one
hour and 58 minutes of sleep. It was
not enough.

He drove down to the Depot at a
steady 35, not trusting his fuzzy
reflexes for anything faster; he made
up for it by ignoring stop signs and
traffic signals all along the way. The
streets were empty and silent in
the darkest hour of a moonless night;
in the clear mountain air, the rare
approach of another set of head-
lights was visible a mile or more
away. He drove with the window
down and his sports shirt opened at
the neck, and by the time he got
' there he was wide awake.

They had taken her out of the in-
firmary into one of the consultation
rooms, where the noise would not
disturb the other woman who w^
waiting for an operation the next
day. She was sobbing uncontrollably,
huddled under a blanket on the

couch, hei: shoulders trembling and
shaking, her face turned to the wall,
her fingers digging into the fabric
that covered the mattress.

He didn’t try to stop her. He sat
on the edge of the couch, and put a
hand on her shoulder. She moved
just enough to throw it off. He
waited a moment, and rested the
same hand on her head. This time
there was a hesitation, a feeling of
preparation for movement again,
and then she stayed still and went on
crying.

After a little while he began
stroking her head,' very softly, very
slowly. There was no visible or audi-
ble reaction,^-yet he felt she wanted
him to continue. He couldn’t see his
watch. The dial was turned down on
the arm that was stroking the girl’s
hair, but he thought it must have
been a long time. He began to feel
overwhelmingly sleepy. The sensi-
ble thing would have been to lie
down next to her, and take her in
his arms, and both of them get some
sleep. . . .

No, not sensible. Sensible was
what it wouldn’t be. What it would
be was pleasant and very reasonable
— but only within the limits of a
two-person system of logic. From
the point of view of the Depot, the
General, the nurse, the Space Serv-
ice’s honor, and the civilized world
in general, it would be an unpardon-
able thing to do. If I were in uniform ^
he thought sharply, it would never
have occurred to me!

She hadn’t quite stopped crying

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

• yet, but she was trying to say some-
thing; the words got lost through
the sobs and the blanket, but he
knew what they would be. Apolo-
gies, embarrassment, explanations.
He stood up, opened the door,
called down the corridor for the
nurse, and asked for some coffee.

She nodded.

If I were in uniform ^ she^d have said^
^'YeSy sir!'' dic^elyy clac){.

When he turned back, Ceil was
sitting up on the couch, the blanket
wrapped around her, covering every-
thing but her face, which was a

• classical study in tragicomedy :
tear-stained and grief-worn, red-
nosed and self-consciously ashamed.

“I — I’m sorry. I don’t know
what — I don’t l^ow what was the
matter.”

He shrugged. “It happens.” When
the coffee came, he could try to talk
to her some, or get her to talk. Now
he was just tired.

“They woke you up, didn’t
they?” She had just noticed the
sports shirt and slacks; she was look-
ing at him with real interest. “You
look different that way. N — ” She
cut it off short.

“Nicer?” he finished for her.
“How do? My name is Tom. I just
work here.”

“I’m sorry I made you get out of
bed,” she said stiffly.

No you're not. You feel pleased and
irnportant and self-satisfied. He
shrugged. “Too much sleep would
make me fat.”

“What time is it?”

He looked at his watcL “Ten to
iive.” The nurse came in with a tray.
“Time for breakfast. Pour some for
me, will you? I’ll be right back.”

He followed the nurse down the
corridor, out of earshot of the open
door. “Did the kid call last night —
Barton?”

“Not since I’ve been on; that was
midnight.”

He walked back to the little cubi-
cle with her and found the neat no-
tation in the phone log at 2003
hours, with a telephone number and
extension next to the name. He
turned to the nurse, changed his
mind, and picked up the phone
himself. There was a distinct and
vengeful satisfaction in every twirl
of the dial; and a further petty
pleasure when the sleepy, resentful
voice at the other end began to
struggle for wakefulness and a
«eiriblance of military propriety as
soon as he said the word “Colonel.”

“I’m not certain,” he said briskly,
“but if you get out here fast, Ceil
just might want to see you this
morning.”

. “Yes, sir.”

“You have a car?”

“Yes, sir, I dr — ”

“Well, it should be about twenty
minutes from where you are. Come
to the main gate at the Depot. You
have any identification, Mister Bar-
ton?"

“I . . . no, sir. I didn’t think
about , . .”

“All right. Use your driver’s li-
cense.”

PROJECT NURSEMAID

“But that has my own na — ”

“Yeah, I know. You’re permitted
civvies on leave, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay. You ask for me. Personal
visit. I’ll leave word at the gate
where they can find me. You know
how to get out here?”

“I think so. Sir.”

“Well, let’s make sure.” He gave
careful instructions, waited for the
boy to repeat them, and added a
final reminder: “You’ll only need
identification to get in the main
gate: Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Colonel hung up and picked
up the other phone, the inside sys-
tem. He left word at the gate that
he was expecting a visitor, and could
be found in the Infirmary. Then he
went quickly back to the little room
where Ceil waited, before the creep-
ing dark edge of a critical conscience
could quite ecHpse the savage glow
of his ego.

With a cup of coffee steaming in
his hands and the comfort of an arm-
chair supporting him, he decided it
was certainly unjust, but not at all
unreasonable, for a man who had
barely napped all night to take a
certain irritable delight in awaken-
ing another man at five — even if
there were no element of masculine
competition — which of course
there wasn’t, really. This last point
he repeated very firmly to himself,
after which he could give his full
attention to what Ceil was saying.

She was talking in a rambling

steady stream; words poured
through the floodgates now with the
same compulsive force that had pro-
duced the violent tears and wracking
sobs of an hour earlier. He didn’t
have to answer; he didn’t even have
to listen, except to satisfy his own
interest. She had to talk; and she
would have to do a lot more of it,
too. But not all at once^ he thought
drowsily, not all of it at five o'cloc\ in
the morning.

Sometimes it happened this way,
A single shock — and having one’s
abdomen cut open is always a shock
— was enough to jolt an individual
over a sudden new threshold of ma-
turity. Ceil had been crying for a
double Ipss: her own childhood, as
well as the baby she hadn’t known
^he wanted till it was gone. Now she
had to discover the woman she was
becoming. But not all in the next
half-hour ...

The nurse came to the door with a
meaningful look. He stood up,
realizing he had waited too long to
tell the girl, uncertain now which
way to go. The nurse retreated from
the doorway, and he stepped over to
the couch, sat down on the edge, and
put his hand on Ceil’s arm.

“Look, kid, I have to go see some-

rWiv now **

“Oh. /’m s^r^l” She didn’t look
sorry; she looked relaxed and almost
radiant, under the tousled hair and
behind the red eyes. “That other
woman . , . she’s being operated
on today, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” And he’d damn near for-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

gotten that himself. “Yes, but that’s
not . . . There’s somebody here to
seeyow, really.”

This time she didn’t think first of
parents. This time she knew.

“Charlie . . . !”

^^Adamy He smiled.

“I don’t . . . I don’t . . . ?”

He didn’t smile, but it was an
effort. “Well, you’ll have to decide.
I’ve got to go talk to him anyhow.”
He stood up and reluctantly left his
half'fiill second cup of coffee on the
tray. At the door he turned back
and grinned at her. “While you’re
making up your mind — we might
be a few minutes — you’d have time
to comb your hair a little if you
wanted to, and things like
that. ...”

He watched her hands fly, dis-
mayed, to her head, and saw her
quick horrified glance in the wall
mirror. Her mind was made up. . . .

The boy was in the waiting room^
at the endr of the corridor, standing
with his back to the door, staring
out of the window. He was tall —
taller than Edgerly — and built big;
even in rumpled tweeds there was
an enviable suggestion of the heroic
in his stance and the set of his
shoulders. Empathy,, the Colonel
decided, was going to be a bit harder
to achieve than usual. He took a step
Into the room, a quiet step, he
thought, but the boy turned im-
mediately, stepped forward himself,
then paused.

Eagerness turned to uncertainty

in his eyes, and then to disappoint-
ment. He started to turn back to the
window.

“Barton.?” the Colonel asked
sharply, and as the boy started for-
ward again, the man was suddenly
genuinely annoyed with himself.
Of course the kid didn’t know who
he was; you don’t spring to attention
and salute a lounging figure in
wrinkled slacks and open-necked
shirt. For that matter, they were
both in civvies. His irritation had
been based on something else alto-
gether.

“I’m Colonel Edgerly,” he said,
and was gratified to hear the trained
friendliness of his own voice. “I’ve
been looking forward to meeting
you.” A little stiffs but all right . . .
He extended a hand, and the boy
took it, doubtfully at first, then with
increasing eager pressure.

“It’s a pleasure tenneet you, sir.
Mrs. Lazarus told me about you and
how much you’d done for — for
Ceil. I was hoping I’d g$t to see you
while I was here.”

“Nothing much to see now but
an empty shell.” The Colonel pro-
duced a smile. “Ceil will see you in a
few minutes, I think. Might as well
sit down and take it easy mean-
while. . . He dropped into an
overstuffed chair, and waved the
boy to another. “I’ve been in there
with her since three o’clock, or some
where around there. You’ll have to
excuse it if I’m not at my brightest.”
Sure^ excuse it. Excuse me for being
fifteen years older and two inches

PROJECT NURSEMAID

shorter. Excuse her for being seductive
as all hell with a red nose. Excuse you
for being, so damn handsomel Excuse
itj please, . . .

“Is she ... is everything all
right?'"'" The kid was white under his
tan. “They said last night she was
resting comfortably. Did any
thing . . .

“She’s fine. She had a fit of the
blues. It happens. Better it hap-
pened so quickly, while she was still
here. . . .” He hesitated, not sure
what to say next. The boy on the
other chair waited, looking polite,
looking concerned, looking intelli-
gent.

A regular little nature s nobleman!
the Colonel thought angrily, and
gave up trying to generate any hon-
est friendliness; he would be doing
all right if he could just keep sound-
ing that way.

“Now look,” he said, “there are a
couple of things I ought to tell you
before you go in. First of all, she
didn’t ask to see you. It was my own
idea to call you. I thought if you
were here, she’d be — glad.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate
that.’’

Quite all right. No favors intended.
As long as he allowed himself full
inner consciousness of his resent-
ment, he could maintain a proper
surface easily. “I don’t know how
she’ll act when you go in. She’s been
having a kind of crying jag, and then
a talking spell. If she wants you to
stick around, you can stay as long
as the nurse lets you, but you ought

to bear in mind that she didn’t have
much sleep last night, and she needs
some rest. It might be better if you
just checked in, so to speak, and let
her know you’re available, and come
back later for a real visit — if she
wants it. You’ll have to decide that
for yourselves. She ...”

He stopped. There was so much
the boy ought to know, so much
more, in quantity and subtlety
both, than he could convey in a
short talk in the impatient atmos-
phere of a hospital waiting-room —
or perhaps more than he could possi-
bly convey to this particular person
in any length of time anywhere.
And he was tired — much too tired
to try.

“Look,” he said. “There’s another
patient I have to see while I’m here.
The nurse will come and get you as
soon as Ceil’s ready for company.
Just — sort of take it easy with her,
will you? And if I’m not around
when you’re done, ask the nurse to
give me a ring. I’d — lik^ to talk
to you some more.”

“Yes, sir.” The boy stood up.
There was an easy grace in his move-
ments that the Colonel couldn’t
help enjoying. “And — weH, I meatn,
thank you, sir.”

The Colonel nodded. “I’ll sec you
later.”

He spent half an hour being pro-
fessionally reassuring at Nancy Kel-
logg’s bedside, while she ate her
light preoperative meal. With a
clinical ear, he listened to her voice

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

jnore than her words, and found
nothing to warrant the exertion of a
more personal and demanding kind
of listening. As soon as he could, he
broke away and went upstairs to his
office, striding with determined in-
difference past the little room where
Ceil and Charlie were talking.

There was a spare uniform in his
closet. He showered and shaved in
the empty locker room at the Offi-
cers’ Club, and emerged feeling rea-
sonably wide-awake and quite un-
reasonably hungry. It was too early
yet for the Depot cafeteria to be
open — not quite seven.

The Infirmary had its own
kitchen, of course So that s it\
More understandable now, why he
was so hungry. He usually got along
fine on coffee and toast till lunch;
and lunch was usually late — a good
deal more than four or five hours
after he woke up.

He stood undecided in the chill
of the niQuntain-country morning,
midway between the Officers’ Club,
the Nursemaid building, and the
parking lot. All he had to do was get
into his car and drive downtown to
a restaurant. Not even downtown:
there was an all-night joint half a
mile down the road.

On the other hand, he ought to be
around, for the Kellogg woman as
much as Ceil. . . .

The Psychologist, the Officer, the
Man, and a number of identifiable
voices held a brisk conference, which
came to an abrupt conclusion when
the Body decided it was too damn

cold to argue the matter out. The
composite individual thereupon ut-
tered one explosive word, and Colo-
nel Edgerly headed for the Infir-
mary.

The nurse said. Yes, sir, they could
get him some breakfast. Yes, sir,
Mrs. Barton had seen Mr. Barton,
and she was now back in bed, asleep
or on her way to it. Yes, sir, Mr.
Barton was waiting. In the waiting
room. She had tried to call the Colo-
nel, but he was not in his office. Mr.
Barton had decided to wait.

“I told him you’d probably gone
home, sir, and I didn’t know if you’d
be back today or not today,
but . . .”

Home? There was more about the
boy insisting that the Colonel
wanted to see him, but be lost most
of it while the realization dawned
on him that it was Thanksgiving
Day. He was officially not on duty
at all. He could have . . .

He could have gone away for the
weekend; but not having done so,
he couldn’t have refused the call in
the middle of the night; nor could
he leave now, with Young Lochin-
var waiting to see him, and Nancy
Kellogg expecting him to be around
when she was done in the operating
room.

“. . , anything in particular
you’d like to have, sir?”

Breakfasty he remembered. He
smiled at the nurse. “Yeah, Ham
and eggs and pancakes and potatoes
and a stack of toast. Sonic oatmeal
maybe. Couple quarts of coffee.”

PROJECT NURSEMAID

She finally smiled back. “Anything
that comes easy, but lots of it,” he
^nished, and went off to find Barton.

Colonel Edgerly put his coffee cup
down, lit a cigarette, and sank back
into the comfortable chair, savoring
the fragrance of the smoke, the fla-
vor of food still in his mouth, the
overall sense of drowsy well-being.

On the edge of the same couch
where Ceil had huddled under a
blanket earlier the same morning,
Ceil’s young man sat and talked,
with almost the same determined
fluency. But this time, the Colonel
had no desire at all to stop the flow.

He listened, and the more he
heard, the harder it got to maintain
his own discomfort, or keep his jeal-
ous distanc^ from the boy. Barton-
Bolido was a good kid ; there was no
way out of it. And Ceil, he thought
with astonishment, was another. A
couple of good kids who had bumped
into each other too soon and too
hard. In a couple of years —

No. That’s fiow it could have
been, if they hadn’t met when they
did, and if the whole train of events
that followed had never occurred.
The way it was now, Charlie would
be ripening for marriage in two or
three more years; "but Ceil had just
this early morning crossed into the
country of maturity — unaware and
unsuspecting, but no longer capable
of turning back to the self-centered
innocence of last summer or last
week.

Briefly, the Colonel turned his

prying gaze inside himself and noted
with irritation, but no surprise, that
the inner image of the Ceil-child
was still vividly exciting while the
newer soldier Ceil evoked no more
than warm and pleasant thoughts.
Well, it wasn’t a new problem^ and
unless he started slapping teen-age
rumps, it wasn’t a serious one. He
returned his attention to the young
lady’s young man, and waited for a
break in the flow of words to ask:

“I take it you and Ceil are on
. . . speaking terms again?”

“y^j, sir.”

“Good. It was important for her,
I think.”

“How do you mean, sir?” The boy
looked vaguely frightened now.

“Just — oh, just knowing that
you came, that you give a damn.

• • •

“I guess she had a pretty low opin-
ion of me,” the boy said hesitantly.

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” the
Colonel told him, professionally
reassuring.

“Well, she did. And I’m not so
sure she was wrong. Frankly, sir,
I’m glad it turned out the way it did.
I mean, if she had to — to get preg'
nanU I’m glad she came here. I don’t
know what I would have . . .”

“Well, we’re glad too,” the Colo-
nel interrupted. “And right now, it
doesn’t really matter what you
would have done, if things worked
out any other way. You could be a
blue-dyed skunk or a one-eyed Mar-
tian and the only thing that would
make any real difference is what Ceil

thought you were. She’s gone through
a tough experience, and her own
opinion of herself, her ability to pull
out of this thing, is going to depend
a lot on whether it all seemed worth-
while — which means, in part, her
opinion oiyour He stood up. “Well,
I suppose as long as I’m here, I
s might as well get some work
done." . .

“I didn’t mean to take up so much
of your time, sir.”

“You didn’t take it. I donated it.
You going back to the hotel, or stick
around here?”

“I’d like to stay around if it’s
all right.”

“All right with me. Major Sawyer

— Dr, Sawyer to civilians like you,
boy — should be in soon. If he kicks
you out, you’ll have to go. Other-
wise, don’t get in the nurse’s way,
and I don’t imagine anyone will care.
I’ll be down later myself.”

He was in the doorway, when the
boy called, “Colonel . .

He turned back.

“Colonel Edgerly, I just wanted
to say — I guess I said it before, but

— I want to thank you again. In
case I don’t see you later. Ceil —
Ceil told me how much you’ve done
for her, and how you arranged for
Dean Lazarus to get in touch with
me, and — well, I want you to know
I appreciate it, sir.”

“Aw, ’twaren’t nothin’.” The
Colonel grinned, and added: “After
all, that’s what I’m here for.” He
went on down the corridor to the
elevators, and up to his office, com-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

fortably aware of a full stomach and
a fully distended sense of virtue.
Everybody would live happily ever
after, and to top it all, he had a full
day ahead to catch up on the neg-
lected paper work of months be-
hind.

The phone was ringing when he
entered the office. He had heard it
all the way down the corridor, buzz-
ing with tireless mechanical per-
sistence. ^

“Hello. Edgerly speaking.”

“Oh, Tom. Good. They told me
you were in, but switchboard
couldn’t find you. Told ’em to keep
ringing till they got you. Could you
run up for a minute? Couple things
to talk over.”

“Yes, sir. I’m free now, if you’d
like . . .”

“Fine. Come right up.”

The Colonel looked at the over-
stuffed Hold basket, and smiled.
The paper work could wait. He
didn’t know what the General was
doing there on Thanksgiving Day,
and he didn’t care. This conference
was long past due.

VIII

The General was doing the talk-
ing; the Colonel sat in stunned si-
lence, listening. Not the smallest
part of his shock was the realization
that the General not only sounded,
but really was, sincere.

“ . . . when you’re running an
outfit like this, Tom, the biggest
thing is knowing whom to put the

PROJECT NURSEMAID “

pressure on and when to ease up.
You’re a psychologist. You’re sup-
posed to be able to see something
like this, even when you’re the one
who’s concerned. These last couple
months, now, you had a pretty free
hand. You realize that?”

The Colonel nodded. It was true.
He hadn’t thought of it that way.
He’d been champing at the bit,
waiting for some kind of recogni-
tion. But it was true.

“Okay, I think I did the right
thing. I told you what we had to
have, and I told you I wasn’t going
to tell you how to do it. I put some
pressure on, and then I left you
alone. I got the results I wanted. We
had three successful applicants the
first nine months, and three more in
less than nine weeks afterwards.

“I didn’t ask how you were doing
it, and I didn’t want to know. It’s
your job, and the only time I’ll mess
around with what you’re doing is
when you’re not getting results. The
only trouble was, I didn’t ask for
enough, or I didn’t do it soon
chough. I should have allowed for a
higger margin of safety, and I didn’t.
That was my fault, not yours —
but we’re both stuck with it now.”

Again the Colonel nodded. There
were questions he should ask, ideas
he should generate, but all he could
feel at the moment was overpower-
ingly sleepy.

The General surprised him again.

“I take it you had a rough night.
Suppose you take a copy of the
transcript with you. Look it over.

If you get any ideas. I’ll be right
here. I’ve got to have an answer
Monday morning, and it better be a
good one.”

The Colonel took the stapled set
of onionskins, and stood up.

“Sorry to spoil your holiday,”
the General rumbled.

The Colonel shrugged. “At least
the holiday gives us a few days to
figure things out.”

The General nodded, and they
both forgot to smile.

Back in his office, with a con-
tainer of coffee getting cold on his
desk, the Colonel read the transcript
of the telephone conversation all the
way through, carefully, and then
through again.

The call had been put through to
the General’s home phone at 7:28
that morning, from the Pentagon
in Washington. Apparently there
had been some sleepless nights on
that end too, after the arrival of the
Satellite Rocket the evening before.

The conversation ran to seven
typed pages. The largest part of it
Was a gingerbread facing of elabo-
rately contrived informalities and
irrelevanci^. Behind the fagade of
jovial thljisats and ominous pleasant-
ries, the facts were these:

For reasons as yet unknown, there
had been three “premature” deliv-
eries of PN’s on the Base: that is,
the babies had come to term and
been delivered from their tanks,
healthy and whole, several weeks in
advance of the expected dates. The

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

three “births,” plus two that were
expected, had all occurred within a
36 hour period, at a time when only
two of the three FP’s were on Base.
Mrs. Harujian was on Satelleave; and
to complicate rfiatters, Mrs. Lenox,
the first one to go up, was suffering
at the time from an attack of colitis,
a lingering after-effect of her first
long unrelieved spell of duty.

Army nurses had had to put in
extra time, spelling the two women
in the nursery. The extra time had
been sufficient to foul up the Satel-
leave schedule for the regular Army
staff on Base. A four-star General
who had gone on the rocket to
Satellite, for the especial purpose of
conferring with a Base Captain,
whose leave was canceled without
notice, inquired into the reasons
therefor, and returned on the rocket
without having accomplished the
urgent business for which he had
submitted his corpulent person to
the discomforts of blastoff accelera-
tion.

The rocket had hardly touched
ground, before the voice of the four
stars was heard in the Pentagon.
Channels were activated. Routine
reports were read. Special reports
analyzing the routine reports were
prepared — and somewhere along
theline, it became known that the
PN schedule at the Depot was not
what it should be.

The phone call to General Martin
therefore informed him that on
Monday morning a small but well-
starred commission would set forth

from Washington to determine the
nature of the difficulties at the
Depot, and make suggestions for the
improvement of conditions there.

For some time the Colonel sat in
his office digesting these pieces of
information. At noon he went down
to the infirmary; said hello to Ceil,
who was awake and looking cheerful;
spent half an hour talking to Mrs.
Kellogg, who was being prepared for
the operating room; left word that
he would be with the General, if
not in his own office, when she came
out of anesthesia; declined, with
thanks, an invitation from the staff
to join them in Thanksgiving din-
ner; and went upstairs to see his boss.

The conference was shorter than
he had expected. The General had
also been doing some thinking, and
had arrived at his conclusions.

“We took .a gamble, and we lost,
that’s all,” he said. “I figured by the
time the shipments began to fall off
enough so anybody would notice,
we’d be back on a full schedule of
operation again. Somebody noticed
too soon, that’s all. Now we have
to get back to schedule right away.
As long as we do that, there won’t
be any heads rolling. . . .

“Now this Serruto woman is
ready to go on the next trip, that
right?”

The Colonel nodded, waiting.

“Then you’ve got, what’s-er-
name, Breneau?, she’s scheduled for
January 6, that right? And Macldn-
tosh just started training, she goes
January 20? Okay, I want those two

PROJECT NURSEMAID

accelerated. I’ll give you any facili-
ties or help you need, but I want
them ready for December 23 and
January 6 instead.”

The Colonel did some quick fig-
uring, and nodded. “We can manage
that.”

“Okay. The next thing is, I want
somebody else started right away.
You got a back file of maybe nine-
teen-twenty names that are open for
reconsideration. Couple of ’em even
had medicals already. I want one
started next week. She goes up
with Mackintosh January 6.”

“You realize, sir, you’re asking
me to send up a woman I’ve already
rejected as unsatisfactory, and to do
it with only five weeks training in-
stead of two months?”

“I’m not asking you. I’m telling
you. That’s an order. Colonel. You’ll
get it in writing tomorrow.”

“Yes sir.”

“Oh, hell, Tom, take it easy, will
you? I’m sorry I had to put it that
way, but I’m taking responsibility
for this. You don’t have to agree;
ail you have to do is produce. You
give me what I want, I give them
what they want, and after thing set-
tle down, you can get things going
more the way you want ’em.”

“May I say something, sir? Before
I start doing what I’m told?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“You were talking about a margin
of safety. I’m worried about the same
thing. You want to make sure we
have enough people up there to
handle a normal scheduled flow of

shipments. I want to see the same
thing. But sending up ten or twenty
or fifty unqualified women isiit
going to give us any margin . . .
sir.”

“It’s sure going to loo\ like one.”

“Yes sir.”

“All right. How would you do
it.?”

“I’d tell the Pentagon boys what
we’re doing, and why, and stick
with it. I wouldn’t start more PN’s
till we’re sure we have enough FP’s.
And I’d start doing some scouting
around for the FP’s.”

“Oh, we got back to that? The
publicity campaign?”

“I still think it’s a good idea.”

“Okay, Tom, let’s get a couple of
things straight. You made a sug-
gestion, and I didn’t pay any atten-
tion, and you went ahead and tried
it out anyhow. Yeah, sure I know
about it. What do you think I meant
this morning about knowing when
to put on pressure? You did it the
right way. You were discreet and
sensible, and it worked — a one-
man campaign, fine.

“But what you could do that way
wasn’t enough, so you sent me an-
other little note, because you wanted
to get it set up officially, and expand
it. Well, look, Tom, I don’t want to
sound insulting. I know you know
a lot about people, that’s your job.
But you know ’em one-at-a-time,
Tom, and it’s been my business for
a hell of a long time to know them
all-in-a-bunch, and believe me —

“You start a big full-scale public-

ity campaign on this thing, and
we’ll be out of business so fast,
you won’t know what hit you. The
American people won’t stand for
it, if they know what’s going on
here.”

“They know now, sir. We’re not
Secret.”

“Yeah. They know. If they sub-
scribe to the New Times and

read the science column on page 36.
Sure we’re not Secret; the Project is
part of the knowledge of every well-
informed citizen. And how many
citizens does that include? Look at
the Satellite itself, Tom. It was no
secret. The people who read the
small print knew all about it way
back some time in the 1940’s when
it was mentioned in a congressional
budget. But it sure as hell surprised
the citizens when it got into the sky
— and into the headlines. We can’t
risk the headlines yet. If people
knew all about us ... . well, prob-
ably we could win over a good ma-
jority. But if all they see is the head-
lines and the lead paragraphs and
the editorials in the opposition pa-
pers . . . and don’t think they
aren’t going to make it sound as if
the government was running a sub-
sidized abortion ring! Does that
make it any clearer?”

“Yes, sir. A lot clearer.”

“Okay. I’ll get official orders
typed up in the morning, and a new
schedule for trainees. Now you
might as well knock off, and enjoy
what’s left of the holiday. Start
worrying tomorrow. ...”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Colonel Edgerly sat in a chair by
the head of a hospital bed and lis-
tened to fears and complaints, and
was grateful that Nancy Kellogg
was really married, and had three
children and a husband at home,
and was not going to go off any^deep
ends in the immediate future. He
made little jokes and reassuring
noises, and held the little pan for
her when she was sick the second
time.

With the surface of his mind he
listened to everything she said and
could have repeated a perfect catalo-
gue of all her aches and pains. When
she moved onto the subject of
previous deliveries, he asked inter-
ested questions at appropriate inter-
vals. She wanted to talk, and that
was fine, because as long as he kept
the top surface busy, he didn’t have
to pay attention to what was going
on farther down.

When she began to get sleepy, he
went and found Ceil, who was
watching television out in the staff
room. She turned off the set and
started a stream of nervous small
talk, from which he could gather
only that she had been doing some
heavy thinking and had a lot to say,
but didn’t know how to say it.
Whatever it was, it did not seem to
be particularly explosive or mel-
ancholy; when the nurse came to
tell her it was time to be back in
bed, he ignored the girl’s hopeful
look, and said he would see her next
day.

He started off up the corridor,

PROJECT NURSEMAID

Jcnowing what he was heading for
and hoping something or someone
would stop him. Nothing and no-
body did. He stepped through the
wide door at the far end of the hall,
and waited while the student nurse
encased him in sterile visitor’s cover-
alls. Inside, he wandered up and
down the rows of tanks, stopping
occasionally to stare through a
glassed top as if he could see through
the membrane and the liquids, or
even perhaps through pale flesh and
cartilage and embryonic organs, to
some secret center of the soul, to
the small groupings of undeveloped
cells that would some day spell mind
and psyche in the walking, living,
growing, feeling, thinking bodies of
these flat- faced fetal prisoners.

Charlie, the Kaydet, had said to
him wistfully, “I wish the kid could
have my name.” To carry to the
stars, he meant. But not right now,
not here on Earth, oh no, that
would be too embarrassing. . . .

On the tanks there were no
names: just numbers. And in the
office down the hall, a locked file
case contained a numbered folder
full of names and further numbers
and reports and charts and graphs
of growth and in every folder of the
37, one name at least appeared. His
own.

They're not my babies^ he thought
angrily, and with reluctance: Yes
they are.

You need to get married, he told
himself clinically. Have one of your
own ...

_ \

That would be an answer, one

kind of answer. But not an answer
to the problem now at hand. It was
an answer for girls like Ceil, and
later for boys like Charlie — for the
people who had listened to his prom-
ises and pledges, and walked away,
and left their babies here.

They walked out. So can I, , , ,
The job the Generals wanted done
was not a job that he could do. So
quitl It could be done. The typed-
out request for a transfer was in his
pocket now. Quit now, and let them
find him a job that wasn’t too big
for a merely human being. Get mar-
ried, have some kids. Let somebody
else . . .

He couldn’t.

If he knew which somebody, if
there were a Colonel Edgerly to
talk to hirri and reassure him and
promise him, so he’d believe it, that
his babies would be cared for . . .

He laughed, and the vapor form-
ing on the face-plate of the sterile
suit made him aware that he was
uncomfortably warm and had been
in there too long. He \^ent out and
stripped off the coveralls. His uni-
form was wet withr sweat, and he
smelled of it. Through empty halls
he went upstairs, avoiding even the
elevator, grateful to meet no one on
the way. In his own office, he stood
and stared out of the window at the
faint edge of sunset behind the
mountains, no more than a glow of
red shaping the ridges against a dark
sky.

He took the wilted sheet of paper

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

from his pocket and would have
torn it up, but instead he opened
the bottom desk drawer and filed it
with all the other unfulfilled acts of
rebelUon.

The parents of these children
could walk out, and had done so.
But the man who had eased the
responsibility from their shoulders,
who had used his knowledge of hu-
man beings and his trained skill in
dealing with them to effect the
transfer of a living human embryo
from its natural mother to a tank
of surrogate nutrient, the man who
had dared to determine that one
particular infant, as yet technically
unborn, would be one of the thou-
sand who would grow up not-quite-
Earthmen, to become the represent-
atives of Earth over as-yet-uncov-
erable distances — the man who
had done all this could not then,
calmly, doff his Godhead, hand it to
another man, and^ay, “I quit,” and
walk away.

He changed his clothes and got
his car from the near-empty parking
lot and drove. Not home. Anywhere
else. He drove toward the moun-
tains, off the highway, onto winding
dirt roads that needed his full atten-
tion in the dark. He kept the win-
dow down and let the night wind
beat at him and when, much later,
he got home, he was tired enough
to sleep.

The blessing of the Army, he
thought, as he slid from wakeful-
ness, was that there was always some-
one over you. Whatever authority

you assumed, whatever responsi-
bility came with it, there was always
some higher authority that could re-
lieve you of a Godhead you could
not surrender.

In the morning, he felt calm and
almost cheerful. His own personal
decision was made, and the conse-
quences were clear to him, but the
career that had mattered very
much at one time seemed compara-
tively unimportant at this juncture.

He checked off the list of appoint-
ments for the day — Kellogg, Bar-
ton, Mackintosh, two new names,
FP applicants; he read the mail,
and read the typed orders and
schedule that came down from the
General’s office; he went efficiently
through the day’s routine, and
whenever there was ten minutes to
spare, he worked on the report the
General required for Monday morn-
ing.

Saturday was an easier day. He
talked to Ceil in the morning, and
signed her release, and told her to
come see him any time she felt she
wanted to. Then he went upstairs,
and finished the report. Read it
through, and tore it up, half-angry
and half-amused at the obvious in-
tent of his defiance. Making sure you
get fired is not at all different from
quitting.

He went carefully through the
card-file of rejects and selected half
a dozen names, then started the re-

PROJECT NURSEMAID

port again. Along toward mid-after-
noon, he buzzed the Sergeant to
order a belated lunch sent up, and
not till after he had hung up did he
stop to wonder what she was doing at
her desk. She was supposed to go off
duty at noon on SaturdaysT He
' picked up the phone again.

“Hey, Sarge — didn’t you hear
the noon whistle?”

“Noon . . . ? Oh. Yes, sir.”

“You don’t have to stick around
just because I do, you know. They
don’t pay overtime in this man’s
Army any more.”

“I . . . don’t mind, sir. There’s
nothing special I have to do today.
I thought if I stayed to answer the
phone, you could . . . you’ll want
that report typed when you’re fin-
ished, won’t you, sir?”

Well^ ril be damned! He was sur-
prisingly touched by her thought-
fulness. “It was good of you to think
of it, Helen.” As soon as the words
were out, he realized how wrong
they were. Too formal, and then her
first name — it didn’t sound like
what he meant. “I appreciate it,” he
added, even more stiffly.

“That’s all right, Colonel. I really
don’t mind. I didn’t have any-
thing special to do, and I just
thought I . .”

He put the receiver down, got up
quickly, and opened' the connecting
door. She was sitting there, still
holding her phone, looking slightly
baffled an^l feintly embarrassed. He
grinned, as the click of the door-
htch startled her. “You’re a good

kid, Sarge, but there’s no sense
hanging onto a phone with nobody
on the other end.”

She flushed, and replaced the re-
ceiver on ks hook. Apparently any-
thing he said was going to be wrong
■ — but this was hardly surprising
when, after four months of almost
daily association, he suddenly found
a person instead of a uniform sitting
at the outside desk.

“Tongue-tied schoolboy, that’s
me,” he said defiantly. “I just never
learned how to say ThanJ^ You po-
litely. Even when I mean it. I think
it was damned decent of you to
stay, and I appreciate what you’ve
done so far, but I’m not going to let
you toss away the whole weekend
just because Fm stuck in the mud.
Look . . . did you order that stuff
yet?’*

“No ... no, sir.”

“Could you stand to drink a cup
of coffee?” He grinned. “With a
superior officer, I mean?”

Almost, she smiled. The Almost
Perfect Lady Soldier, he thought with
relief.

, “Yes, sir, I think I could.”

“All right. Pick up your marbles
and let’s get out of here. I could use
a break myself. After that,” he fin-
ished, “you’re going home. I’ll tell
the switchboard I’ve gone myself,
and let them take any calls. And as
far as the typing gbes, I don’t know
when I’m going to have this thing
finished. It could be 3 o’clock in the
morning . . . and I can always get
one of -the kids from the pool to typi^

A . ^ wi

it up tomorrow, if I’m too lazy to do
it myself.”

She frowned faintly; then her face
smoothed out again into its cus-
tomary unruffled surface of compe-
tence. “You’re the boss.” She
smiled and shrugged almost imper-
ceptibly. “Let’s go!”

He had thought he wanted com-
pany. A short break would be good.
Generalized conversation — en-
forced refocusing of attention —
sandwich and coffee — twenty min-
utes of non-concentration. Fine.
But all the way to the commissary
he walked in silence, and when they
found a table and sat down, it took
only the simplest query — “How’s
it coming?” ^ — to set him off.

He talked.

For an hour and a half, while suc-
cessive cups of coffee cooled in front
of him, he talked out all he meant to
say. Then when he finally looked at
the clock and found it read almost 5,
he said, abashed, “Hey — didn’t I
tell you to go home ? ” .

“I’m glad I didn’t,” she said.

There was a note of intensity in
the saying of it that made him look
more closely. She meant it! It wasn’t
a proper secretarial remark.

“So am I,” he told her with equal
seriousness. “I got more done yak-
king at you here than I would have
in five hours, crumpling up sheets at
my desk. Thanks.”

He smiled, and for an instant he.
thought the uniform would slip
away entirely, but the answering
$mile was only in her eyes. At least.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

he thought, she’d refrained from
giving him her standard Reception-
ist’s Special. . . .

He didn’t do any more that day.
Sunday morning, he Went into the
office early, and started all over
again, this time knowing clearly
what he meant to say, and how.
When the phone rang, at 1 1 , he had
almost completed a final draft.

“This is Helen Gregory, sir. I
thought I’d call, and find out if you
wanted that report typed up to-
day . . . ?”

Bless you, gall “As a matter of fact.
I’m just about done with it now,”
he started, and then realized he had
almost been betrayed by her matter-
of-fact tone into accepting the sacri-
fice of the rest of her weekend.
“It’s not very long,” he finished,
not as he’d planned. “I’ll have plenty
of time to type it up myself. Take
yourself a day off, Sarge. You earned
it yesterday, even if you didn’t have
it coming anyway.”

“I . . . really don’t mind.” Her
voice had lost its easy certainty.
“I’d lil^e to come in, if I can help.”

OhmigodI He should have known
better than to crack a surface as
smooth as hers. Yesterday afternoon
had been a big help, but if she was
going to start playing mama
now . . .

“That’s very kind of you, Helen,”
he said. “But there’s really no need
for it.”

“Whatever you say ...” She
sounded more herself again — or

PROJECT NURSEMAID

her familiar self — but still she left
it hanging, clearly not content. He
pretended not to notice.

“Have a good day,*' he said cheer-
fully. “Tomorrow we maybe die.
And thanks again.’*

“That’s all right, sir. I really — I
suppose I’m just curious to see how
it came out, really.”

“Pretty good, I think. I hope.
I’ll leave a copy on your desk to
read in the morning. Like to know
what you think — Hey! where do
you keep those report forms?”

“Middle drawer on the left. The
pale green ones. They’re quadrupli-
cate, you know — and onionskin for
our file copy is the top drawer on
that side.”

“It’s a good thing you called. I’d
have had the place upside down try-
ing to figure that out. Thanks,
Sarge — and take it easy.”

He hung up thoughtfully; then
shook his head and dismissed the
Sergeant, and whatever problems
she might represent, from his im-
mediate universe. He spent another
half-hour changing and rewording
the final paragraph of the report,
and when he was satisfied that he at
least could not improve it further,
found the forms and carbon sheets
neatly stacked where she’d said. A
hell of a good secretary, anyhow.
Nothing wrong in her wanting to
mother-hen a little bit. He was the
one who was over-reacting. . . .

The father-pot calling the mother-
little neurotic y he thought bitterly.
And that was natural enough too.

Who could possibly resent it more.?

He stacked a pile of sheets and
inserted them in the typewriter,
wishing now he’d been rational
enough to trade on the girl’s better
nature, instead of rejecting so hard.
It would take him a couple of hours
to turn out a decent-looking copy.
She could have done it in thirty-
minutes. . . .

The phone jangled at his elbow;
he hit two keys simultaneously on
the machine, jamming it, and reached
for the receiver.

“Colonel Edgerly . . , ?”

Excited young female type. Not
the Lady Soldier.

“Speaking.”

“Oh . . . Tom, Hello. This is
Ceil.” She didn’t have to tell him;
he knew from the breathless way she
said his first name. “I tried to call
you at home, but you weren’t
there. ... I hope I’m not busting
into something important?'^

“Well, as a matter of fact — ”
Whatever it was she wanted, this
wasn’t his day to give it out. “Look,
kid, will it keep till tomorrow? I’ve
got a piece of work here I’m trying
to finish up — ” Maybe she could
type, he thought, and reluctantly
abandoned the idea.

“. . . really what I wanted any-
how,” she was saying. He had missed
something and, backtracking, missed
more. “. . Tonly time we’re both
free, and I wanted to check with
you ahead of time . . .” Who was
both? Charlie maybe? Coming to
ask for his blessing?

68^

Fm getting hysterical, he decided,
and managed to say goodbye_as
calmly as if he knew what the call
had been about. Tomorrow. She’d
come in tomorrow, and then he’d
find out.

One isolated phrase jumped out
of the lost pieces: “. . . called yes-
terday . . .’’The Sergeant had been
turning away calls all day, and he
hadn’t looked at the slips when he
left, because he thought he was com-
ing back.

He found them on her desk,
neatly stacked. Ceil had called twice:
no message. A Mrs. Pinckney of the
local Child Placement Bureau
wanted to speak with him about a
matter of importance; he dimly re-
membered meeting her at the Laz-
arus’ party. Two candidates for
FP had made appointments for next
week. The rest were interdepart-
mental calls, and the Sarge had
handled them all.

His hand hesitated briefly over
the phone as he considered' calling
Sergeant Gregory and giving them
both the gratification of allowing her
to do the typing for him. Then he
took himself firmly in hand, and
headed back to the inner office and
the typewriter. No need to pile up
future grief just to avoid a couple of
hours of tedium.

He settled down, unjammed the
stuck keys, and started again with
a fresh stack of paper.

In the morning, over his breakfast
coffee, he read again through the

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

carbon copy he had brought home,
and decided it would do. He had
managed to give the General what
he’d asked for, and at the same time
state his own position, with a mini-
mum of wordage and — he hoped
— a maximum of clarity.

The report began by complying
with the specific request of the
General . it listed the names of six
rejected candidates who might be
reconsidered. The first three, all of
whom he recommended, included
Mrs. Leahy, the madam; Mrs. Buo-
naventura, who had failed to be
sent through for further testing be-
cause she had only one arm; and a
Mr. George Fitzpatrick, whose ap-
plication had been deferred, rather
than rejected, since they planned to
start sending men later.

He pointed out that in the first
two cases the particular disabilities
of the ladies would not, in practice,
make any difference to their ef-
fectiveness; and in the case of the
man — if the program were to be
accelerated other ways, why not this
way too?

There followed a list of three
names, conscientiously selected as
the least offensive of those in his
file who might be expected to qual-
ify on Medic and Security checks;
in these three cases he undertook,
as Psychological Officer, to qualify
any or all for emergency appoint-
ments of two months, but added
that he could not, in his professional
capacity, sign his name to full- term
contracts for any one of them.

PROJECT NURSEMAID

The next section was a single page
of figures and statistics, carefully
checked, recommending a general
slow-down for the Project, based on
the percentage of acceptable FP can-
didates encountered so far. A semi-
final paragraph proposed an alter-
nate plan: that if the total number
of applicants for FP positions could
be increased, by means of an intelli-
gendy directed publicity program,
the number of acceptable candi-
dates might be expected to be large
enough to get the Project back to its
original schedule in three months.

And then the final paragraph:

“It should be remembered, in
reviewing this situation, that on this
Project we are dealing with human
beings, rather than inanimate ob-
jects, and that rigid specifications
of requirements must in each in-
dividual case be interpreted by the
judgment of another human being.
As an Ofiicer of the Space Service,
whose duty it is to make such judg-
ments, I cannot, in all conscience,
bring myself to believe that I should
include in my considerations any
extraneous factors, no matter of
what degree of importance. My of-
ficial approval or rejection of any
individual can be based only on the
qualifications of that individual.”

He read it through, and drove to
work, wondering what the chances
were that anyone besides the Gen-
eral would ever see it.

The day was routine, if you dis-
counted the charged air of suspense

that circulated through the build-
ing from the time the three star-
studded Washingtonians drove into
the parking lot and disappeared into
the General’s office. The Colonel
conducted the usual number of in-
terviews, made minor decisions,
emptied a box of kleenex, and re-
placed it.

For the Colonel^ there was a feel-
ing of farce in every appointment
made for the future and every piece
of information carefully elicited and
faithfully recorded. But the Ser-
geant, at least, seemed to have come
back to normal, and played the role
of Lady Soldier with such conyic-
tion that the whole absurd melo-
drama seemed, at times, almost real.
She complimented him gravely on
the report when she handed him his
list of appointments; thereafter, the
weekend and its, stresses seemed for-
gotten entirely in the familiar rou-
tine of a Monday , morning.

At 10:30,. Mrs. Pinckney called
again. It seemed she was going to a
social welfare convention in Mont-
real next month; would the Colonel
like to work with her on part of a
paper she meant to present there,
in which she could “plug” the Proj-
ect?

He couldn’t tell her, through
the office switchboard, that the boss
had rapped his knuckles and threat-
ened to wash his mouth with soap
if he kept talking about indelicate
matters outside the office. He sug-
gested that they get together during

the week; he^d call her when he saw

some free time. She hung up, ob'
viously chagrined at the coolness of
his tone, and immediately the phone
buzzed again.

This time it was the Sergeant.
“I just remembered, sir, there were
some phone slips from Saturday
that you didn’t see,”

‘‘Thanks. I picked ’em up yes-
terday.”

“Oh. Then you know Mrs. Bar-
ton. called? She seemed very ea-
ger

“Yuh. She called again yesterday.
That’s what made me check the
shps. Oh, yes. She’s coming in to-
day, sometime.”

“She didn’t say when, sir?”

“No. Or I’m not sure. If she did,
I don’t remember.” And what dif-
ference did it make?

“Shall I call her back and check,
sir?”

“I don’t see why.” It was getting
irritating now. Apparently, the Ser-
geant was going to remain slightly
off-keel about ^anything connected
with the weekend. Well, he
thought, one could be gAteful at
least for small aberrations — if they
stayed small. “She’d be in class now,
anyhow,” he added sharply.

“Yes, sir. It’s just that I under-
stand you’ll probably be going up
to the Conference right after lunch.
So if it was important . . .”

“It wasn’t,” he said with finality.
“If I’m busy when she comes in, she
can wait.”

“Yes, sir.”

He hung up, wondered briefly

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

about the exact nature of the rumor
channels through which the secre-
taries of the Depot seemed always
to know before the decisions were
actually made just what was going
to happen where and when, gave it
up as one of the great insoluble mys-
teries, and went back to the ridicu-
lous* business of carrying on the
normal day’s work.

At noon, the General’s secretary
informed Sergeant Gregory that the
General and his visitors were going
out to lunch and that the Colonel’s
presence was requested when they
returned, at 1330 hours. The Ser-
geant reported the information to
her superior. He thanked her, but
she didn’t go away. She stood there,
looking uncomfortable. .

“Something else?”

“Yes, sir, there is. It’s . . . not
official.”

There was an urgency in her tone
that drove away his first quick irri-
tation. He focused on her more
fully, and decided that if this was
more of the mothering act, it was
bothering her even more than it did
him. “Sit down. Sergeant,” he said
gently. “What’s on your mind?”

“No, thanks. I ... all right.”
She sat down. “I . . . just wanted
to tell you, sir ... I mean I
thought I ought to let you know
before you go up ...”

“Yes?” he prompted. And where
has my little Lady Soldier gone?

“It’s about your report. I can’t
tell you how I know, sir, but I un-
derstand the General turned it over

PROJECT NURSEMAID

to the other officers. Maybe I should
have . .

“Excuse me.” He was beginning
to feel a burst of excitement. His
first reaction to the idea of being
included in the Conference at all
had been a sinking certainty that
Edgerly was going to play Goat
after all. But if they’d seen his re-
port , . . “I won’t ask you how you
know, but I do want to find out just
how reliable your source is,” he said
eagerly. It was possible, just barely
possible, that his ideas might be
given some serious consideration by
the Investigating Committee!

“It’s reliable,” she said tightly
and paused, then went on with
quick-worded determination: “Per-
haps I should have said something
before, when I read it, but it was too
late by then to make any changes,
so I ... I mean, if you’d agreed
with me, sir. But the way you wrote
the report, it does — excuse me, sir,
but it makes sucE a perfect out for
the Generali / know you’ve been
cooperating with him, and he knows
it, but anyone who just read the
report . , She stood up, not
looking at him, and said rapidly, “I
just thought I ought to let you
know before you go up, the way it
looks to me, and how it might look
to them. I’m sorry if I should have
spoken up sooner.”

She turned and almost ran for the
door.

“That’s all right, Sarge,” he said,
almost automatically. “It wouldn’t
have done any good to tell me this

morning. I should have let you come
in yesterday. . . .” ‘

Just before the door closed, he had
a glimpse of a shy smile in which
gratitude, apology, and sympathy
merged to warm friendliness. But
the marvel of this, coming from the
Sergeant, was lost entirely in the
hollowness of his realization that he
was going to get what he wanted.
He was going to get fired. The Gen-
eral had passed the buck with ex-
pert ease, and Tom Edgerly would
be quietly relieved of a post that was
too big for him, and —

He felt very very sick.

The two girls walked in through
the open door, just how much later
he didn’t know. He’d been sitting
with his back to the desk, staring
out the window, remembering the
care he had taken to write . that re-
port in such a way as to defeat his
own acknowledged weakness, and
marveling bitterly at the subcon-
scious skill with which he had com-
posed the final document.

He heard the noise behind him,
a hesitant cough-and-shuffle of in-
trusion, and turned, realizing that
Helen would have gone out for
lunch and left the doors open.

It was Ceil; the other girl with
her was the last PN before her. They
had met in the Infirmary, he sup-
posed; Janice had gone home last
Tuesday; Ceil came in Monday.
Yeah.

They both looked very intense.
Not today ^ J^ds, Some other time.
He stood up, and smiled, and began
rehearsing the words to get rid of
them.

Ceil stepped forward hesitantly.
“Was this a bad time to come? If
you’re busy, we could make it to-
morrow instead. It’s just, lunch
hour is the only time we’re both
free, and we wanted to come to-
gether. Jannie works late . .

She was chattering, but only be-
cause she had sensed something
wrong.

“It’s not a good day,” he said
slowly, and glanced at his watch and
back at the girls, and knew defeat
again. Whatever it was, it was im-
portant — to them.

“Well, we can come in tomor — ”

“You’re here now,” he pointed
out, and formed his face into a
smile. “I have some time now, any-
how.” The time didn’t matter to
him. He had more than half an hour
yet before he had to go upstairs and
get put to sleep in the mess of a bed
he had made. “Sit down,” he said,
and pulled the extra chair away
from the wall over to the desk.

They sat on the edge of their
seats, leaning forward, eager, and
both of them started talking at once,
and then both stopped. -

“You tell him,” Ceil said. “It was
your idea hfst.”

“You can say it better,” the other
one said.

For God's saJ^e, one of you get to it!
“Spit it out,” he said brusquely.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

They looked at each other, and
Ceil took a deep breath, and said
evenly: “We want to apply for
Foster Parent positions.”

He smiled tolerantly. Then he
stopped smiling. It was impossible,
obviously. A couple of kids —

“Why?” he asked, and as a jumble
of answers poured out, he thought,
with mounting elation, Why not?

“My mother acts like I committed
a sin. ...” That was Janice.

“In two years, Charlie can get
married. . . .”

“. . . maybe I did, but if I helped
to take care of some of them . . .”

, I’d know more about how
to manage in a place like that, in
case we did . . .” Ceil.

“. . . even if it wasn’t my
own ...”

That was the catch, of course.
They’d play favorites. They’d —
if they didn’t hpow — Mrs. Mackin-
tosh had said, if you weren't so ob-
viously oriented in the opposite direc-
tion . . .

Janice — she was the one who’d
had an' affair with her boss. He waS'
going to ''marry her of course, but
when she found out she was preg-
nant, it turned out he already had a
wife. No job, no man. He would pay
for her to get rid of it — but she
wouldn’t. She couldn’t. And she
couldn’t stay home and have it; it
would kill her mother, she said. . . .

Ceil — Ceil came in as a child,
riot knowing, not understanding,
and downstairs, in a hospital bed, she
grew up.

PROJECT NURSEMAID

A couple of kids, sure. But women^
too. Grown women, with good rea-
sons for wanting to do a particular
job.

He heard the Sergeant come in,
and flew into a whirlwind of activity.
It was 1:15. By 1:27, they had
both applications neatly filled out
and the already-completed Medical
and Security checks out of the
folders. The psych tests for FP’s
were more comprehensive than the
ones they’d had, but he knew
enough to figure he was safe.

He took another twenty seconds
to run a comb through his hair and
straighten his tie. Then he went up-
stairs.

The Colonel sat at his desk, and
filled in an application form neatly
and quickly. He signed his name at
the bottom and stood up and
looked out the Fig window and
laughed without noise, till he real-
ized there was a tear rolling down
his cheek.

It was all over now, but it would
all begin again tomorrow morning,
and the next day, and the next. The
visiting Generals had accomplished
their purpose, which was to goose
Nursemaid into action, and had
gone back home. The resident Gen-
eral had come through without a
blot on his record, because it was all
the Colonel’s fault. The Colonel
had come through with a number of
new entries in his record, and
whether they shaped up to a blot or
a star he cpuld not yet tell.

The interview had been dramatic,
but now the drama was done with
and the last piddling compromise
had been agreed on: the two new
candidates; plus the man, Fitzpat-
rick; plus consideration for men
from now on; plus reviewing the
backfiles of PN’s to see how manv
more were willing; plus the trickle
that could be expected from this
source in the future ; plus an overall
20 per cent slowdown in the original
schedule; plus policy conferences in
Washington on the delicate matter
of publicity; plus a reprimand to the
Colonel for his attitude, and a com-
mendation to the Colonel for his
work . . .

He pushed the buzzer, .and the
Sergeant came in.

“Sit down,” he told her.

She sat.

“It just occurred to me,” he said,
“that the — uh — dramatic state-
ments on those applications you
typed up were . . . extraordinarily
well put?” He kept the smile back,
with a great effort.

“What statements did you mean,
sir?” The Perfect Lady Soldier diad
her perfect deadpan back.

“The last questions. Sergeant. You
know — ‘Why do you desire
to . . .’ The answers that were all
about how Colonel Edgerly had in-
spired the apphcants with under-
standing, patriotism, maternal emo-
tion, and — similar admirable quali-
ties.”

“I — ” There was a faint, but not
quite repressed, glint in the Ser-

geant’s eye. “Fm afraid, sir, I sug-
gested that they let me fill that in;
it would be quicker, I thought, than
trying to take down everything they
wanted to say.”

“Sergeant,” he said, “are you
aware that those applications be-
come a part of the permanent file?”

“Yes, sir.” Now she was having
trouble not looking smug.

“And are you also aware that it is
desirable to have truthful replies in
those records?”

“Yes, sir.” She didn’t feel smug
now, and for a moment he was afraid
he’d carried the joke too far. He
meant to thank her, but . . . “Yes,
sir,” she said, and looked directly at
him, not hiding anything at all. “I
wrote the truth as I saw it, sir.”

The Colonel didn’t answer right
away. Finally he said, “Thanks.
Thanks a lot. Sergeant.”

“There’s nothing to thank me
for.” She stood up. “I hope it —
helped?”

“Fm sure it did.”

She took a step, and stopped.
“Fm glad. I think — if you don’t
mind my saying so, sir, I think
they’d have a hard time finding
anybody else to do the job you’re
doing. I mean, to do it as well.”

He looked at her sharply, and then
at the filled- out form on his desk.

“I guess I have to say Than\ You
again.” He smiled, and realized her
embarrassment was even greater than
his own.

“Fll — is there anything else you
want, sir? I was just going to leave

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

when you buzzed — ” Her eyes were
fixed one foot to the right of his
face, and her cheeks were red. *

“Yes,” he said. “There is some-
thing else — unless you’re in a
hurry. It can wait till tomorrow, if
you have a date or any tiling.”

“No, sir. Fm free.”

“All right, then. What do you
like to drink, and where would you
prefer to eat? I have lousy taste in
perfume, and I owe you something,
God knows — besides which, it’s
about tin^e we got acquainted; we
may be working together for a while,
after all.”

She was still embarrassed, but
she was also pleased. And his quick
glimpse before had not fully pre-
pared him for how sweet her smile
was, when she wasn’t doing it pro-
fessionally.

There was just one more thing he
had to do before he left.

He took the application for a
Foster Parent position from the top
of his desk — the one with his own
name signed to it — and filed it in
the bottom desk drawer. There was
a job to be done here — a job he
couldn’t possibly do right. The re-
quirements were too big, and the
limitations were too narrow. It was
the kind pf a job you could never be
sure was done right — or even done.
But the Sergeant — who was in a
position to know — thought he
could do it better than anvone else.

Time enough to go traipsing off to
the Moon when he finished as much
of the job as they’d let him do, here.

In which a Washington writer depicts the unforeseeable influence of Frank R,
Stockton upon interstellar contacts.

T>ywyk

by DORIS P. BUCK

The polyhedral spaceships had
first been telescopically observed on
July 14 — Bastille Day, 1961. On
July 18 two went up in flames on
smashing into Earth’s atmosphere,
for which they seemed unprepared.
On July 19 the armada, except for
three vessels, withdrew beyond tele-
scopic range. Four days later the
three, orbiting spirally downward
to brake their speed, landed success-
fully on the Atlantic, off Virginia,
then bobbed rapidly up the Poto-
mac. They stopped outside Wash-
ington, close to the National Air-
port. There the aliens, ignoring the
small craft following them, hopped
onto land before anyone could make
other arrangements.

The Assistant Secretary of State,
several scientists with assorted clear-
ances, and numerous lesser dignita-
ries, hurried to them. They were
twice the size of kangaroos and sug-
gested a cross between a grasshopper
and a praying mantis, .except for
their tails. Like insects, they had
exoskeletons. These were glossy black
except, again, for the tails, which

consisted of srnall disks of every im-
aginable color. Tl^ey tinkled mu-
sically with every movement; by
contrast, the creatures’ joints sounded
as if they needed oiling.

The Things, of which there were
27, had neither noses nor ears, but
they frequently set up masts re-
sembling small radio antennae on the
ends of their oddly shaped, triple-
eyed heads. They also, on their sec-
ond day here, fitted silvery tubes
over their mandibles. After that,
they talked quite clearly ^ — above
the din of their disks and joints —
in pleasant contralto voices. Either
they were telepathic, or they had
been making a special study of
English — or possibly both. Their
first remark was that they would
consider it a favor if no one asked
them questions until the second
week of their visit. This request was
scrupulously honored.

They were never seen to eat, but
on the fifth day of the first week,
during which they had gone sight-
seeing with great thoroughness, they
asked if they could have brandy

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Alexanders sent out to the ships at
the cocktail hour. On the sixth day
they asked to have a sampling of
literature read aloud to them, if that
would not be inconvenient. Wash-
ington hostesses begged to have this
take place in private homes; and
competition became savage for K
clearances, which anyone now had to
have who dealt with the creatures.

At first there was an attempt to
read the same material to all. But
this broke down. One dear little old
lady, who lived in a large Victorian
mansion, read them Frank R. Stock-
ton’s The Lady, or The Tig^? This
was the only work on which they
made comments. They were certain
their hostess was keeping the ending
back. She explained again and again:
the story was a popular teaser. No
one, perhaps not even the author,
knew whether the hero found the
court damsel or the tiger when he
opened the door in the arena. This
left the aliens wholly unsatisfied.

“Don’t you wish you knew.?”
they asked.

“I do not,” she said. “The charm
lies in that baffling close.”

“Are you sure” (by now they used
the vernacular easily) “that you
aren’t holding out on us.?”

“I’m certain,” she answered in-
dignantly.

The next day the Things were a
little late in starting their sightsee-
ing. When they appeared, they
asked, a shade brusquely, if they
might visit all government agencies
referred to only by initials. This was

quite a program; they covered every-
thing from ACA (Advisory Com-
mittee on Aeronautics) and ADERB
(Animal Diseases Eradication Re-
search Branch) to the revived
USSBOS (United States Strategic
Bombing Survey) and VOCREC
(Voluntary Credit Restraint Com-
mittee). “Poetic,” murmured one of
them; “these stir the mind.”

The aliens returned, unusually
quiet, to their ships, and most peo-
ple in Washington and the metro-
politan area presently went to bed.
Those who worked or played by
night found themselves unaccount-
ably sleepy. When all wakened (three
days afterward as astronomers in-
formed them), the Potomac was
empty of anything extraterrestrial.
The Naval Observatory reported
nothing unusual in the sky.

But along the Mall in Washing-
ton, at carefully spaced intervals
of two feet, three inches, lay a line of
hexahedrons, roughly the size of
children’s pencil boxes. JOnly a few
were identical. They were honey-
combed, of various coppery shades,
and slightly warm. If people tried
to pick them up, they began to
glow and become incandescent. The
ground around them smoked and
soon scorched in widening areas.
Even scientists learned to leave
them alone.

Attached to the front of each
object was a plate engraved with the
word DYWYK.

There was speculation, sensational
and scientific. A generally accepted

DYWYK

view was that the creatures had left
eggcases. If these hatched and the
immature young grew to full size,
many people thought they would
attempt to take over Earth. Others
felt peaceful coexistence would be
possible. Methods of destroying the
objects were tried. None worked.
Some men contended the coppery
substance was left behind to poison
our atmosphere. Others .said the
Things had left a landmark for fu-
ture expeditions; the small size of
the dy wyks — as everyone called
them — and the fact that they did
not glow at night made this unlikely.

The dywyks could of course be
gifts — a bread and butter present
from outer space which Earth did "
not know enough to utilize. They
might be trash, though the obvious
care with which they were placed
made that 'unlikely.

For a while a debate between
those who supported the eggcase >
theory and those who championed
the trash theory crowded other ma-
terial off the editorial page of the
Washington Post. Men grew tense,
even ugly, arguing that the heat was
a protective device to guard some-
thing precious or that it was a purely

accidental reaction and one that
would destroy eggs if they were
there. Interest and even fear grew
to such proportions that Congress
offered a reward to anyone who
could explain the term DYWYK.

“Of course,” said the dear little
old lady one day at a party where —
as at all parties of the time —
brandy Alexanders were the popular
drink, “I could tell what DYWYK
means. But that doesn’t get us
anywhere.”

“Go on!” Everyone was agog,

“You see, they learned from me
and Mr. Stockton our fondness for
enigmas, and from the government
our way of naming things. So, natu-
rally, DYWYK.”

“But what does it mean?” de-
manded her eminent host.

“Don’t you wish you knew?” she
asked gently.

“Don’t I just!” And then sud-
denly, with the clarity of the fifth
brandy Alexander, he exclaimed,
“DYWYK! Don’t You Wish You
Knew ... in governmentese!”

“Of course,” the dear little old
lady nodded. “But then,” she
shrugged, “that isn’t any real an-
swer, is it?”

With that same detailedly persuasive conviction that marked his study of
The Rats QF(^SF^ December^ The Fly (F&SF, September,

The Ruum (F(i^v5'F, October, igjf) and The Grom (^Ff&SF, November,
igS4^y Arthur Forges now examines the strange life’-cycle of a being whose
extraordinary intelligence affords it no protection against a world in which
life or death is harshly determined by the merest happenstance.

!Bj/ a Fluke

by ARTHUR PORGES

It IS POSSIBLE TO BE VERY INTELLI'
gent and yet completely helpless

— at the mercy of a capricious
environment.

For countless generations my short-
lived race has contemplated with
justifiable bitterness the dominance
of a species — they call themselves
humans — essentially our mental in-
feriors, but blessed with a large
hfe-span and superb appendages for
the manipulation of matter and
energy in a variety of forms.

Because of these two priceless
attributes, long life, and toolholding
fingers, they rule the earth, while
we can only tune in on a few of their
thoughts — m^ny wholly irrational

— and fight our joyless, never-end-
ing battle for individual survival.

In the fields of mathematics and
philosophy we far surpass these
lords of creation, I, myself, after
only a fifth of my life had passed.

easily solved a number of their most
difficult problems in pure mathe-
matics. But without experimental
science, our philosophy is sterile;
and even our mathematics lacks
virility for being out of contact
with the laboratory. The brute facts
of nature are needed to leaven our
metaphysical bread.

It may be futile — in fact, it al-
most certainly is, for me to squander
these last few hours of my all too-
brief existence in reciting the auto-
biography of one individual of my
people; but for the first time we are
aware, my fellows and I, of a being
able to record this account. We have
reason to believe that his instru-
ments are even now receiving and
preserving my ordered thoughts.

I spoke of an “account,” and yet,
in fairness, I will admit** that it is
more of a protest — a protest, point-
less, of course, since nothing can be

BY A FLUKE

done, against a world,, an evolu-
tionary process, and a fate we find
intolerable. Such a protest cannot
change anything, but we are suffi-
ciently like the human gods to feel
somehow better for it, regardless.

But time is passing all too quickly;
I must begin with a personal, yet
typical, history. I hope and believe
that the being, apparently from some
other world, is recording it. One
hates to cry aloud to mere emptiness.

My first recollection is that of the
dimmest sort of consciousness,
wherein I was not yet able to receive
the* thoughts of my people. It was
a kind of suspended animation,
which I now know to have been the
egg-stage of my life. I seem to re-
member a rolling, tumbling passage
down a twisting tube, through gur-
gling brownish liquid. That was, of
course, a bile duct. Many of my own
kind have I sent by that path in
weeks past.

I have reason to believe that I
left my egg rather quickly ; that is a
physiological feeling however, and
not of great evidential value. Al-
though we adults can receive the
young ones’ thoughts soon after
they hatch, there is no way to
estimate, except very approximately,
how long they have had to remain
in the egg. My own real awareness
began when I hatched as a roughly
cone-shaped, multicellular, and cili-
ated mite, a mere blob of living
matter.

I was one of the lucky* few, born
in water. Had I hatched in a dry

place, as did so many of my con-
temporaries, I should not be alive
now.

You may wonder how I can know
of any events outside my own
limited experience. That is the
tragedy of the situation : this facility
of ours for exchanging thoughts
and information. The heritage of
the race is readily transmitted to
each individual who survives long
enough to absorb it. And yet, being
without appendages or motility, we
cannot implement this knowledge.
Nor can we contact the dominant
life-form, which might — one can-
not be very sure — be willing to aid
us. We can listen to many of their
thoughts, when the range is not
excessive, but they are apparently
unable to receive ours. Much of
our mathematical information has
been acquired in this way. Our
conception of their physical world,
however, is vague and distorted,
I have often wondered just what
entities — chemical, electrical, and
biological — their mathematics re-
ally involves. I can never know. Al-
though I solve easily all varieties
of differential equations, including
some that have baffled, the human
experts, it is, for me, a purely
formal process, and for that reason
less intriguing than problems in
the theory of numbers, which most
of us prefer. In the latter field, the
mathematics is all: no practical re-
lation is implied. With applied
analysis, one works in a vacuum.
For example, I have solved the

problem of n bodies moving in a
gravitational field, but have no real
feeling for the result.

Biit I must not digress longer.
All that I meant to emphasize is
that from the moment I hatched,
the helpful thoughts of my elders
flooded my consciousness. I knew
instinctivdy what I must do, but
the advice I received made the task
easier; and above all it alleviated the
terrible sensation of facing unique,
unknown problems. One was briefed
in advance, an enormous advantage.

There I was, a tiny blob of almost
naked fife, awakening in a strange
medium, the liquid humans call .
water, and feeling within me a burn-
ing urgency, a need for rapid ful-
filment, with death ticking off the
precious seconds. I knew I had to
find a certain organism, one that
was not too common, and further a
creature being hunted by hundreds
of my brothers.. And my time was
limited. Eight hours^ my advisors
told me. Find It in eight hours, or
you die. Swim, little one! Swim
hard! But there was a kind of weari-
ness behind their promptings. They
knew how many of us must perish.

I swam, scarcely knowing what I
sought; and as I whipped my cilia
through the murky fluid, my men-
tors repeated constantly a descrip-
tion of the animal I needed in order
to live. It was a monster compared
to me, so big that I might easily
fail to perceive it at all except for
their promptings. This giant was
clad in armor, which I must avoid;

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

it would be wasted energy to assault
it there. It was mindless, a mere
brute. Men call it a snail, and give
it a mouth-filling name: Lymnea
columella,

I was one of the fortunate few. I
found my snail, a colossus grating
huge masses of vegetation with a
toothed ribbon of a tongue. I was
lucky in another way. (It is quite
absurd, I realize, to keep repeating
the phrase. It is axiomatic among
my kind. Only the lucky minority
survives; to be alive long enough
to have thoughts is to be lucky by
. definition.) My particular snail held
only a few of my fellows. Even as I
prepared to force an entrance, I
heard the anguished thoughts of
forty-three of my contemporaries,
who had all unhappily converged on
another snail, which was already
well- tenanted. The elders warned
them, but with the same weaty
understone. If you all penetrate, the
host will die, and you will perish
with it. Swim away, all who have a
little time, and search for another
snail.

They advised in vain. The instinct
for survival cannot be checked by
intelligence. No one would, with-
draw, nor could one blame them.
As so often happens, they' were
caught in the time- trap. Each cried
that his few hours were up; that
there was no other snail near enough.
Each apparehtly hoped' the elders
were wrong; that somehow the host
would five through the mass in-
vasion of its vitals. Or maybe they

BY A FLUKE

knew themselves to be doomed and
were determined not to let any of
their fellows survive. Our life pat-
tern does not make for altruism;
one regrets it, intellectually, but
fully comprehends the feelings of
the individual marked for death and
unwilling to meet it in place of his
brothers. I heard their last resentful
thoughts as the snail died, becoming
a poisonous mass of carrion that de-,-
stroyed my fellows.

I crept over the brute’s hard shell
until f found soft tissues, and worked
my way in. It felt good, almost like
being safe in the egg again, with no
pressing problems. I found a snug
spot in a lymph vessel. There were
others of my kind about, but I
had enough room. There I settled
down to meditate, learn, and await
my first change, which the elders
informed me would be coming soon.
It was during this brief but un-
troubled period that I mastered
many fields of philosophy and math-
ematics.

After a few hours, my cilia began
to drop off, one by one. They were,
of course, no longer useful to me>
and there was no pain. I became
larger, saclike, and dreamy. But
my mind was clear, and I learned
quickly as the elders drowned my
eager receptors with waves of racial
information and counsel.

Several more hours raced by, and
I began to change. I felt my per-
sonality multiplying, and" became
aware that I was now a collective
entity. This made me feel very

secure; even if only one of these
sub-multiples were to survive the
perils ahead, it meant that I sur-
vived. There was no exchange of
thoughts among us; we were one,

' and needed no communication.

This odd state did not last long,
however. Almost before I realized
it, I and my co-descendants were
changing again. Each of us became
several smaller entities, but still en
rapport in every way. I myself be-
came six, and shortly thereafter we,
all six of us, broke free of the shell
of my former body, now a dead
thing, and made our way to a dif-
ferent part of the snail. There was
much bustle, with many others
on the move. But to us, the snail
was a world of nearly limitless
space, and we had not seriously
harmed it. My little group found a
pleasant place. On describing it to
the elders, they were able to identify
it for us as the snail’s liver.

At this point in my career, my
individuality suddenly returned, and
I no longer felt as one with my dup-
licates, who went about their own,
obviously similar, affairs. This was
also a brief state, although long
enough for me to solve a number of
difficult mathematical problems
while dreamily sucking nourishing
fluid from the spongy mass I clung
to so tenaciously. In particular, I
verified two famous conjectures of
human scholars: that of Gold bach,
that every even integer is the sum of
two primes; and another of Riemann
relating to complex variables.

I had just finished the latter
problem, an exhausting exercise when
done mentally, by demonstrating
ta my complete satisfaction that the
real part of a certain function was
definitely one-half, as the man had
conjectured, when I found myself
dividing again. It is a feeling one
hardly gets used to, especially in so
short adife time, and seems to hap-
pen with bewildering rapidity as
well as too often. By allowing my-
self to become too absorbed in the
last problem, I had missed the usual
advance information provided by the
elders, but instinct was enough.

In a short time I found myself
equipped with a slender vibrile tail
and handy suckers at both ends.
After a hasty consultation with the
elders, I wasted no more valuable
moments experimenting with these
new organs, but burrowed, rather
regretfully, out of my cozy place
by the snail’s liver, through the
soft body into the chilly water.

My instinct, reinforced by a
stream of advice from those who had
gone before, urged me towards the
bank of the little pond. It was a
tiresome and unpleasant swim; the
tail was not as useful as my earlier
cilia; and there were enemies in
the water. I saw many of my fellows
swallowed up by huge, brainless
animals, infinitely smaller than our
late host, but gigantic to us, and
well-armored. Humans call them
water-fleas. I had several narrow
escapes myself, as they swim much
faster than we do.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

It was with a feeling of profound
relief that I came to a giant, waving
green spear of vegetation on _the
very edge of the water. The elders
cheered me on, saying it was a grass-
blade, and just what I needed. I
struggled wearily almost to the top.

'At this stage my consultants be-
came rather apathetic about my
fate, since now, for the first time,
one’s own effort meant nothing.
Everything is a matter of chance
from this point on, and there is a
kind of anesthetic comfort in that
knowledge.

Once more, and quickly, I was
transformed, losing my tail and
becoming a multiple entity again,
protected by a tough, weatherproof
shell. This is one of the longer way-
stations of our episodic cycle, and I
spent many fruitful days on mathe-
matics. It was during this period that
I disproved a famous speculation:
Fermat’s Last Theorem, men call
it, which states there are no non-
trivial integral solutions of the equa-
tion X“ + Y*' = for n an integer
greater than two. I found, oddly
enough, and without really expect-
ing to, that there are exactly two
prime values of n between 2 ^'^® and
24177 fQj. which solutions exist. What
a pity that I can’t pass this sur-
prising fact along to the human
mathematicians, with whom, in spite
of their racial arrogance and my
bitterness, I feel some kinship of
the intellect.

Listening to the comments of my
older fellows, I knew what to hope

BY A FLUKE

for. Another animal, a really titanic
thing, was now necessary for my
survival. But it had to seek me out;
there was absolutely nothing I could
do; my motility was gone.

ft was a matter of pure chance
that I did survive. I was one of the
last of my generation to be saved.

One of the enormous beasts did
come by, gulped me down, and part-
ing company with my sub-units,
each of which now became a sepa-
rate personality, I burrowed through
the creature’s stomach wall and
worked my way to its massive liver.
Here on this dark bulk, in the flush
of my maturity, with hundreds of
my companions, 1 had a magnificent
food debauch which now, after al-
most three months, is just coming to
a close.

As both male and female I have
poured out eggs and sperm in a
single fecund stream for many weeks.
Hundreds of my offspring are calling
even now from grass blades where
they await the toss of nature’s coin
which will decree life or death.

I have exchanged soaring thoughts
with my adult associates, ranging
over many an abstruse field of math-
ematics and philosophy. What a
pity this must end! My hold on the
shriveled organ is weakening; there
is no strength in my anterior sucking
disc. Soon I shall pass. This is fare-
well to whoever is recording my
story. If only we had more time, or
useful appendages, or even motility,
but ... no ... I .. .

The above is a record^ clarified by
the inclusion of certain equivalent
names and phrases^ of the autobio-
graphical recitation of a strange little
organism found by Gobal Denoty
on the third planet of the recently
discovered system, A study of the
writings of the extinct race of bipeds
which lately dominated the planet
indicates that they were^ completely
unaware of this creature s remarkable
mental powers^ and listed it merely as
a degenerate flatworm^ a parasite of
sheep: the liver fluke ^ Fasciola hepa-
tica.

FOOTNOTE TO OZ

It has been pointed out to us that some readers might misinterpret
a passage in Martin Gardner’s “The Royal Historian of Oz” (F&SF,
January, 1955, p. 78) in which Mr. Gardner quotes a letter from the
artist Ralph Fletcher Seymour describing L. Frank Baum in his
Chicago days. Mr. Seymour wants it clearly understood that he
was recalling the impressions of his youthful innocence and that
he did not wish to imply the slightest denigration of Baum’s moral
character. We offer our apologies to the Historian’s son, Frank
Baum, and to any others whom we may inadvertently have offended.

Have you ever thought^ ’ * Fritz. Leiber once asked y * * what a ghost of our
times would look likeV* Leiber went on to produce one horrible and con-
vincing answer in his classic Smoke Ghost; but other answers are possible y
including one that is chilling enough in its wayy but also wryly comic.
This new kind of ** ghost - of our times'" you'll meet as J. B. Priestley
bitingly sketches a middle-class family and tells of the first ghost who
ever haunted a television set.

Uncle Thil on T^V

by J. B. PRIESTLEY

Uncle Phil’s insurance money
came to a hundred and fifty pounds,
so that night the Grigsons had a
family conference about it, in the
big front room above the shop.
They were all there — Mum and
Dad, Ernest, Una and George her
husband (Fleming was their name;
but of course Una was a Grigson and,
George helped Dad in the shop),
and even Joyce and young Steve,
who were usually off and out^nd
stayed out, as Mum said, till all
hours. As a matter of fact Mum,
who had let herself cool down and
had tidied her hair for once, looked
very proud aiid happy to see them all
together like that, just as if it was
Christmas though it was only Octo-
ber and her feet weren’t so bad as
they always were-at Christmas. It
was nice, even though Uncle Phil
had been Mum’s elder brother and

now he was dead and this hundred
and fifty pounds was his insurance.

“It’s mine by rights of course,”
said Mum, referring to the money,
“but I think — and so does Dad —
it ought to be spent on something
for the family.”

“Had him to keep,” said Dad
darkly, “and had to put up with
him.”

“I’ll say,” cried young Steve.

“You be quiet,” said Mum. “I
won’t say you hadn’t to put up with
him, but he did pay his share — ”

“Not lately he didn’t,” said Dad.
“Worked out all right at first, when
prices weren’t so bad, but not lately
it didn’t. Not at twenty-three shil-
lings a week.”

“That’s right,” said Ernest, who
was a railway clerk and very steady,
so steady that sometimes he hardly
seemed alive at all. “Some of us had

Copyrighty /95J, by J. B. Priestley
84

UNCLE PHIL ON TV

him to keep. I’m not saying we
oughtn’t to have. I’m just making
the point, that’s all.”

“I wish somebody’d come to the
point,” cried Joyce, who of course
wanted to be off again. “If there is
one.”

“That’ll do, you saucy monkey,”
said Mum, who soon lost her temper
with Joyce. “Just remember this was
Uncle Phil’s money in a way. And
now he’s Passed On.” And then she
could have bit her tongue off, saying
a silly thing like that. For now a
shadow settled over the family
gathering.

The doctor, an impatient and
over-worked man, had been very
angry about Uncle Phil’s passing on,
which ought not to have happened
when it did. Uncle Phil had had a
very bad heart, and the doctor had
warned Mum and Dad that the
things Uncle Phil had to take, when
he felt an attack coming on, had to
be within easy reach. But that Tues-
day morning somebody had put
Uncle Phil’s box of things up on the
mantelpiece, where he couldn’t reach
them when his last fatal attack had
come on. A lot of questions had been
asked, of course, but nobody could
remember putting it up there; and
it had been all very awkward and
even downright nasty. It hadn’t
been done on purpose, even the doc-
tor didn’t suggest that, but some-
body in the family had been very
careless. And there was no getting
away from the fact that for various
good reasons they were all glad, or at

least relieved, that Uncle Phil was
no longer with them. He hadn’t
liked them any more than they’d
liked him. Even' Mum had never
been really fond of him. Dad had
tried to put up with him, you could-
n’t say more than that. And the
younger members of the family had
always disliked and feared the sar-
castic old man, with his long sharp
nose and sharper tongue, his slow
movements, his determined refusal
to leave the fireside even when they
were entertaining friends and hated
to have him there watching them.
Before he had come to them, he had
worked for some Loan Company,
nothing but moneylenders really, in
Birmingham, and perhaps this job
had made him very hard and cyni-
cal; you might say nasty-minded.
Also, some accident he’d had made
him carry his head on one side, so
that he always looked as if he was
trying to see round a corner; and
even this, to say nothing of the rest
of him, got on their nerves. So natu-
rally it was a rehef to know that
never again would they see him com-
ing in to dinner, so deliberate and
slow, his head on one side, his long
nose seeming to sniff at them and
their doings, a hard old man all
ready to make some cutting remark.
But at the same time it was awkward
because of those things that were up
on the mantelpiece when they ought
to have been on the little table by
his chair. So while Mum was telling
herself what a daft donkey she’d
been, everybody else was silent.

Then Mum for once was glad
George Fleming was such a brassy
sort of chap. “Here, we’ve had the
funeral once, we don’t want it
again,” cried- George. “He’s gone,
and that’s that. And I’m not going
to pretend I’m sorry. He never liked
me and I never liked him. If you
ask me, he looked like a pain in .the
neck, and he was one —

“Every time, George,” young
Steve shouted.

“I couldn’t agree more,” cried
Joyce, who picked up a lot of fancy
talk at work even if she didn’t pick
up much money there.

“Let me finish,” said George,
frowning at the young Grigsons, for
whom he was more than a match.
“You’ve got this hundred and fifty
quid, Ma. And you don’t know what
to do with it — right? Well, I got an
idea. Something we could all enjoy.”

This was more like it. Mum gave
him an encouraging smile. “And
what would that be, George?”

“Television set,” replied George,
looking round in triumph.

Then everybody began talking at
once, but George, who didn’t look
like a bull for nothing, managed to
shout them down. “Now listen,
listen! We’ve got TV here in Small-
bridge at last, and comes over good
too. What more d’you want? Gives
you everything. Sport for me and
Dad and Steve. Plays and games and
all that for you women. Dancing and
fashion shows too. Variety turns we’d
all like. Serious stuff for Ernest. Ask
your friends in to enjoy it.”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

That was what clinched it for
Mum, who had several friends who
certainly wouldn’t be able to afford
a set of their own for some time;
she saw herself bringing them in
and telling then what was in store.
So she made herself heard above the
babble that broke out again. “What
would a nice set cost, George?”

“You could get a beauty,” replied
George, who always knew the price
of everything, “for a hundred and
twenty quid. Saw one at; Stock’s the
other day. Might get a bit of a dis-
count from Alf Stocks too.”

Dad and Ernest nodded a grave
assent to this. Una, who wouldn’t
have dared do anything else, sup-
ported her husband. Joyce hinted
that a home with a good television
set might be more popular with her-
self and girl and boy friends. Young
Steve was all for it, of course, So it
was agreed that George should take
advantage of the first slack half-hour
in the shop the next day and go along
to Stocks’s to bargain for the hun-
dred-and-twenty-quid beauty. Then
there was much excited gappy talk
about TV programmes and who
could be asked in to see them and
who couldn’t; and clearly there was
a general feeling, although even
George dared not openly express it,
that fate had been kind in exchang-
ing Uncle Phil, whom nobody
wanted, for this new wonder of the
world.

Two days later, before Dad and
George had come up from the shop
and the others had returned from

UNCLE PHIL ON TV

work, the television set, with aerial
and everything in order, was there
in the front sitting-room, looking
a beauty indeed. Alf Stocks himself
showed Mum and Una how to work
it, and wouldn’t leave until he’d
seen each of them turn it on and off
properly, which took some time be-
cause Mum was flustered. As soon as
Alf Stocks had gone. Mum and Una
looked at one another, and though it
was nearly time to be getting a meal
ready for Joyce and the men, they
decided to have a look by them-
selves for ten minutes or so. Una
turned it on, not having any trouble
at all, and it began showing them a
film that looked like an oldish cow-
boy film, which wasn’t exactly their
style, still it was wonderful having it
in the sitting-room like that. The
people were small and not always
easy to see and their voices were loud
enough for giants, which made it a
bit confusing; but they watched it
for quarter of an hour, and then
Mum said they’d have to be getting
the meal ready or there’d be trouble.
Una wanted to keep it on, but Mum
said that would be wasting it. So
they turned it off, just after the
Sheriff had been getting some evi-
dence about the rustlers from Dry-
wash Pete the Old timer.

They didn’t say anything for a
minute or two, while Una was start-
ing to lay the table and Mum began
doing the haddock. Then Mum
popped out of the kitchen, and
looked at Una as if she had some-
thing rather important to say but

didn’t know how to start. And Una
looked at her too, not saying any-
thing either. Then finally Mum said:
“Una, did you happen to notice that
other little man who was there —
you know in that last bit we saw —
with the Sheriff?’’ -

“What about him?” asked Una,
who had now started cutting bread.

“Well, did you notice anything?”

“Seeing that you’re asking — I
did.” But she went on cutting bread.

“What, then?”

“I thought, just for a sec,” said
Una, sawing away at the loaf and
sounding very calm, “he looked just
like Uncle Phil. Is that what you
mean?”

“Yes it is,” said Mum, “and it
gave me quite a turn.”

“Just a what’s-it — coincidence,”
said Una. “There — that ought to
do.”

“Plenty,” said Mum. “It’s only
getting stale if you cut too much.
There’s some of that sponge in the
tin. I’ll get it. Yes, of course — as
you say — just a coincidence. Nearly
made me catch my breath, though.
I wouldn’t say anything to the
others, Una. They’d only laugh.”

“George included: And then he’d
tell me he’d had quite enough of Un-
cle Phil. So I won’t say anything.”
Una waited a moment. “Who you
having in tonight to look at it?”

“We’ll settle that when they all
come in,” replied Mum rather
proudly.

There was a bit of trouble, as
Mum guessed there would be, when

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

they all did come in. Joyce and
Steve, with some timid backing by
Una, were in favour of what amounted
to a continuous performance by the
set. Dad and Ernest were dead
against this idea, which they thought
wasteful and silly. They wanted to
make a sort of theatre of it, with
everybody sitting in position a few
minutes before the chosen programme
was ready to start, and then lights
turned off and Quiets please! and all
that. George Fleming thought that
was going too far but he was against
the continuous touch too. One thing
they had to decide, he pointed out,
was how many people could sit in
comfort and see the set properly. So
he and Steve went and worked it
out and after some argument agreed
that you could manage a dozen, that
is, if you brought up the old settee
as a sort of dress circle. Meanwhile
'an argument had broken out among
the women about who ought to be
invited for this first evening, until
Dad, with some moral support from
Ernest, put his foot down, as he said,
and declared that tonight it would
be family only. Ernest, who was in-
clined to look on the dark side, said
they needed at least one evening of
it to make sure the set worked prop-
erly and didn’t make them look
silly.

Mum had been disappointed at
first but after they had washed up
and tidied, and Joyce, staying in for
once, and Steve had arranged the
chairs in front of the set, she felt it
was nice and cosy to have a televi-

sion show just for themselves. George,
who had had a technical session
with Alf Stocks in the shop, took
charge of the set in his masterful
way, so that Dad, who had a bit too
much of George at times, whispered
to Mum that they ought not to have
let him buy the set for them, be-
cause now you’d thmk he owned it.
However, thert they all were. Dad
and Ernest with their pipes going,
Una and Joyce eating toffee-de-
luxe, and the set winking brightly
at them. There was some argument
about how much light there ought
to be in the room, and this was set-
tied finally by switching off the bowl
lamps in the centre and leaving on
the standard on the other side. Then
the television picture looked bright,
sharp and lovely.

The first item, dullish for the
Grigsons, was about how men trained
for various sports. Mum and Una
were bored with it until near the
end, when there was a scene of box-
ers in a gymnasium. Not that they
cared about that of course, but the
point was that some men who weren’t
boxers appeared in this scene, carry-
ing things about or just looking in,
and among these men — just seen
in a flash, that’s all — was a little
elderly man who carried his head to
one side and seemed to have a long ^
no^e. Steve, who was always quick,
spotted him and sang out that a lit-
tle chap had just ^ne past who

looked like old Ui^le Phil. The
%

others didn’t notice or didn’t bother
to say anything; but Mum and Una

UNCLE PHIL ON TV

gave each other a look, and, as they
said afterwards, felt quite peculiar,
because, after all, this was the second
time.

' Well, next was a snooty lady talk-
ing about clothes, with some models
helping her, and of course this was all
right because no men came into it at
all. But the only one who liked it
much was Joyce, who thought about
nothing but clothes and boys.

Then — and this was when the
lather really started — there was a
sort of game, about telling where
you were born, a very popular pro-
gramme that had had a lot of write-
ups in the papers. A lovely actress
was in it, as well as that man who
was always in these shows just be-
cause at any minute he might be
very rude and have to apologise af-
terwards. But there was also a sort of
jury, who didn’t do much but just
sit there and see fair play. Ten of
them altogether — four wornen and
six men; and you never saw them
long, just a glimpse now and then,
and it was specially hard to get a
good look at the end man farthest
away. 'Which was a pity so far as the
others were concerned j because then
they might have understood at once.
But Mum, beginning to shake, didn’t
think this time it was somebody
who looked like Uncle Phil, she
knew very well it was Uncle Phil.
In fact, she couldn’t be certain he
hadn’t given her one of his nasty
looks.

“Una, just a minute,” she said
shakily, as soon as the newsreel

started, and' off she went into the
back room, trusting that Una would
have sense enough to follow her.
The next minute they were staring
at one another, out of sight and
sound of the others, and Mum knew
at once that Una was as worried as
she was.

“You saw him at the end there,
didn’t you, Una?” she asked, after
giving herself time to catch her
breath.,

“Yes, and this time I thought it
really was him,” said Una.

“I }{now it was. Pll take my dying
oath it was.”

“Oh — Mum — how could it
be?”

“Don’t ask me how it could be,”
cried Mum, nearly losing her tem-
per. “How should I know? But
there he was — yes, and I’m not
sure he didn’t give me one of his
looks.”

“Oh — dear I” Una whispered, her
eyes nearly out of her head. “I was
hoping you wouldn’t say that. Mum.
Because I thought he did too, then
I thought I must have been making
it up.”

“Una, that’s three times already,”
said Mum, not sharp now but almost
ready to cry. “I’m certain of it now.
That was him in the film. That was
him in the boxing. Don’t tell me it’s
a what’s-it — Just accidental. He’s
there.”

“Where?”

“Now don’t start acting stupid,
Una. , How do I know where? But
already we’ve seen him three times.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

and if I know him this is only his
first try. It’ll be a lot worse soon,
you’ll see. It’s just like him trying
to spoil our pleasure.”

“Oh — Mum — how could he?
Listen, I believe we were thinking
about him — ”

“If wasn’t thinking about him — ”

“I expect you were and you
didn’t know it,” Una continued with
some determination. “Same with
rr^e. Then we think we see him — ”

“I know I saw him,” cried Mum,
exasperated. “How many times have
I to keep telling you?”

“You’ll see — it’ll wear off.”

“Wear off! You’ll get no wearing
off from him. I tell you, he’s there,
just to spite us, and he’s staying
there. You watch!”

While they were staring at one
another, not knowing what to say
next, Steve popped his head in.
“Come on, you two. Bathing show
next. Boy — oh boy!” Then he
vanished.

“You go, Una,” said Mum, her
voice trembling. “It’ll look funny if
neither of us goes, and I can’t fece
him again tonight. I’m going to
make myself a cup of tea. Honestly,
I’d give the show away if I went.”

“Well,” said Una, hesitating, “I
suppose I ought. I can’t see how he
could be th^re — and I believe it’s
all our fancy. But if I did see him
again. I’d scream — couldn’t stop
myself.” And she went off rather
slowly to the front room.

Mum was just pouring out her
tea when she heard the scream. The

next moment Una came flying in,
followed by her husband, who
looked annoyed. “Mum, he was
there again.”

“What’s the idea?” George de-
manded, like a policeman.

“I’ll tell him,” cried Mum. “You
sit down and drink that tea, Una
dear. Now then, George Fleming,
you needn’t look at me like that.
Just listen for once. Una’s upset
because she must have seen Uncle
Phil again. We’d seen him three
times before — and that must have
been the fourth. He was there again,
wasn’t he, Una? Yes, well I’m not
surprised.” She looked severely at
George, daring him to laugh. “He
was there, wasn’t he? Tell me the
truth now, George.”

“Why should I lie?” said George,
not even smiling. “I’ll admit it’s
quite a coincidence. Twice I no-
ticed a chap who looked very like
Uncle PhU — ”

“Four tinries I’ve seen him now,”
cried Una, sitting with her cup of
tea. “Honestly I have, George.”

“And you can’t explain it, can
you?” And now George was smiling,
as he looked from one harassed
woman to the other.

“How can anybody explain it?”
said Mum crossly. “He’s there,
that’s all.”

“Come off it, Ma,” said George.
“You’ll be telling me next he’s
haunting us. Couldn’t be done. Let’s
have a bit of common sense. I can
explain it.”

“Oh — George — can you?” Una

UNCLE PHIL ON TV

was all relief, gratitude and devo-
tion.

“Certainly.’" George waited a mo-
ment, enjoying himself. Mum could
have slapped him. “Look — they
have to have a lot of chaps round
when they’re doing these scenes —
chaps with the cameras, lights and
all that. Well, it just happens that
one of ’em — who keeps getting
into the picture when he oughtn’t
— looks like Uncle Phil — head on
one side and so forth. And thk set
reminds you of Uncle Phil — bought
with his money — so every ' time
you see this chap you tell yourself
it must be him, though of course it
couldn’t be — stands to reason.”

“That’s it, George,” cried Una.
“Must be. Mum — we were just
being silly.”

But Mum, who could be very
obstinate at times, wasn’t so easily
persuaded. “I see what you mean,
George. But I don’t know, I can’t
-believe these television chaps are
as old as that. And what about that
look he gave me?”

“Oh — come off it,” said George,
losing his patience. “You imagined
that. How could the chap take a
look at you? He was just looking at
the camera, that’s all. Now let’s
pack this up and go back and enjoy
ourselves. Come on — some variety
turns next. You don’t want to spoil
it for everybody, do you?”

This artful appeal was too strong
even for Mum’s misgivings, and
George triumphantly escorted them
to the front room. The variety show

was about to begin; already a band
was playing a Hvely tune. Mum
found herself looking round with
satisfaction at the expectant faces
of her family. This was more like it,
what she’d hoped for from a tele-
vision set.

Three girls did a singing and
dancing turn, to start off with, and
it wasn’t bad. Ernest, who was
sitting next to Mum, breathed hard
at them, but whether out of ap-
proval or disapproval, she didn’t
know. Since that dark fancy girl at
the confectioner’s had given him
up, Ernest had seemed to be off
women, but , of course you could
never tell, steady as he was. Next
turn was a nice-looking young chap
who played anjaccordion, and Mum
felt secretly in agreement with Joyce '
who loudly declared he was “smash-
ing.” He finished off with some nice
old panto songs that they all began
to sing. Now at last Mum felt really
happy with the set. And of course
just after that was when it had to
happen.

A conjurer appeared, a big comi-
cal fellow who pretended to be very
nervous. George told them he was
the top turn of the ^how, very
popular. He did one silly trick and
then pretended to do another and
make a mess of it, which made
them all laugh a lot. Then he sdid
he’d have to have somebody from
the audience, though there wasn’t
any audience to be seen. As soon as
he said that, as Mum told them
afterwards, she suddenly felt nerv-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

ous. And then there he was, giving
them a nasty sideways’ grin — Uncle
Phil.

“I won’t have it,” Mum screamed,
jumping up. “Turn it off, turn it
off.” Blit before anyone could stop
her, she had turned it off herself.
As they gaped at her, she stood in
front of the set and stared at them
defiantly.

“What’s the matter with you?”
cried Dad, looking at her as if she’d
gone mad. And as the others all
began talking, he turned on them:
“Now you be quiet. I’m asking
Mum a question. We can’t all talk
at once.”

Joyce started giggling and Steve
gave a loud guffaw, as boys of that
silly age always do.

“Do you mean to say, Fred Grig-
son,” said Mum, glaring at him,
“that you haven’t noticed him yet?
Five times — counting the one I
didn’t see but Una did — he’s turned
up already, and this is only the first
night we’ve had it. Five times!”

“What you talking about?” asked
Dad angrily. “Five times what?
Who’s turned up?”

“Uncle Phil,” said Una quickly,
and then burst into tears. “I’ve seen
him every time.” And she went
stumbling out of the room, with
George, who was a good husband
for all his faults, hurrying after her.

Dad was flabbergasted. “What’s
the matter with her? I wish you’d
talk sense. What’s this about Uncle
Phil?”

“Oh — don’t be such a silly don-

key,” cried Mum. “He keeps com-
ing into these television pictures.
Haven’t you got any eyes?”

“Eyes? What’s eyes got to do
‘with it?” Dad shouted, thoroughly
annoyed now.' “I’ve got some sense,
haven’t I? Phil’s dead afid buried.”

“I know he is,” said Mum, nearly
crying. “Tfiat’s what makes it so
awful. He^s doing it on purpose, just
to spoil it for us.”

“Spoil it for us?” Dad thundered.
“You’ll have me out of my mind in
a minute. Here, Ernest, did you see
anybody that looked like Uncle
Phil?”

Later, found the supper table,
they sorted it out. Una and Mum
were certain they had seen Uncle
Phil himself five and four times
respectively. George said he had
seen a camera^ man, or somebody
who looked like Uncle Phil, three
times. After maddening delibera-
tion, Ernest agreed with George.
Joyce said she had twice seen some-
body who looked the spit image of
Uncle Phil. Steve kept changing
his mind, sometimes agreeing with
his mother and Una, sometimes
joining the Coincidence School. Dad
from first to last maintained that he
had seen nobody that even reminded
him of Uncle Phil and that every-
body else had Uncle Phil on the
brain.

“Now you just listen to me. Dad,”
said Mum finally. “I know what I
saw and so does Una. And never
mind about any coincidences. They
wouldn’t make me jump every time

UNCLE PHIL ON TV

like that. Besides I know that look
of his, couldn’t miss it.”

“How on earth — ” Dad began,
but she wouldn’t let him go on.

“Never mind about how on earth,''
Mum shouted. “Because I don’t
know and you don’t know and
nobody does. What I’m telling you
is that he’s got into that set some-
how and there’ll be no getting him
out. It’ll get worse and worse, you
mark my words. And if we’ve any
sense we’ll ask Alf Stocks to take
that set away and give us our money
back.”

This roused George, who made
himself heard above the others. “Oh

— come off it, Ma. Alf Stocks would
never stop laughing if we told him
he’d have to take that set back
because Uncle Phil’s haunting it.
Now — be reasonable. You and Una
got excited and started imagining
things. Everything’ll be okay to-
morrow night, you’ll see.”

“Oh — will it? That’s what you
say.” '

“Of course it’s what I say. It’s
what we all say.”

“Have it your own way,” said
Mum darkly. “Just keep on with it.
But don’t say 1 didn’t' warn you.
He’s there — and he’s staying there

— and if you ask me, this is only
the start of it. He’ll get worse before
he gets better. Wherever he is, he’s
made up his mind we shan’t enjoy
a television set bought with his
insurance money. You’ll see.”

In the middle of the following
afternoon, when Mum and Una had

the pjace to themselves and usually
enjoyed a quiet sensible time to-
gether, they were both restless. They
had gone into the front room, to
sit near the windows and keep an
eye on the street below, but it was
obvious that they would never settle
down. There in its corner was the
TV set with its screen that looked
like an enormous blind eye. For
some minutes they pretended not
to notice it. Finally, Una said: “I
looked in the Radio Times and
there’s a programme for women
this afternoon.”

‘T know,” said Mum rather
grimly. “I looked too.”

“We’d be all right with that,
surely? In any case — ”

“In any case — what?” Mum still
sounded rather grim.

“Well,” said Una timidly, “don’t
you think we might have got a bijt
worked up last night — and — ^im-
agined things?”

“No, I don’t,” said Mum. Then,
after a moment: “Still, if you want
to turn it on — turn it on. If it’s
a women’s programme — middle of
the afternoon too — perhaps he
won’t show up. He used always to
have a sleep in the afternoon.”

“But — listen. Mum. As George
says — ”

“Never mind what George says.
George doesn’t know it all even
though you’d sometimes think he
does. But go on — turn it on, if
you want to.”

Una walked across and rather
gingerly manipulated the switches.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

With an absent-minded air, Mum
arrived in front of the set and sat
down in a chair facing it. The next
minute they were looking at and
listening to the matron of a girls^
hostel, a woman so determinedly
refined that she sounded quite for-
eign.

“You see, it’s all right,” said Una,
when the matron had been followed
by two girls playing the violin and
piano.

“So far,” said Mum, “but give
him time. Still — this is very nice,

I must say.”

After the music a man came on
to talk about buried treasure. He
was a" youngish chap, schoolmaster
type, very nervous and sweating"
something terrible. “You’d be sur-
prised at what some of us have
found,” he told them. “And now
I want to show you a few things —
genuine treasure trove.” He beck-
oned anxiously to somebody off the
screen, saying: “If you don’t mind
— thank you so much.”

It was Uncle Phil who walked on,
carrying some of the things, and as
soon as he was plainly in view he
turned that twisted neck of his,
looked straight out at Mum and
Una, and said: “Talk about treasure!
You Grigsons haven’t done so bad
with that hundred-and-fifty quid
of mine.”

“You see — talking to us now,”
screamed Mum as she dashed for-
ward. “But I’ll turn him off.” And
as she did, she added firmly: “And
that’s the last time he does that to

me. I’ll not give him another chance.
God knows what he’ll be saying
soon!” She pointed an accusing fin-
ger at Una, who was still trembling
in her chair, and went on: “I sup-
pose we’re still a bit worked up and
Just imagined that. Now, Una —
you saw him, you heard him —
didn’t you? Right, then. No going
back on it this time.”

And Mum marched out and made
for the kitchen, where she clattered
and banged until it was time for
a cup of tea. Steve, who worked in
an auctioneer’s office and kept odd
hours there, was the first home that
day, and without saying a word to
his iriother and sister he hurried
straight through into the front room,
obviously making for the television
set. The two women, who were in
the back room, preparing the eve-
ning meal, said nothing to him. This,
as Una guessed at once, was Mum’s
new line; no more protesting, no
more trying to convince the others;
just a grim dark silence, waiting for
the final din and flare of “I told
you so.” As they laid the table,
they could hear voices from the set
but no actual words. Five minutes,
ten minutes, passed.

Then abruptly the voices from the
front room stopped. There was a
silence that lasted perhaps half a
minute, and then Steve, looking
quite peculiar, came slowly into the
back room. He tried to avoid meet-
ing the questioning stares of.the two
women. He sat down and looked at
the dining- table. “Nearly ready?”

UNCLE PHIL ON TV

he enquired, in a small choked voice.

“No it isn’t nearly ready,” said
Mum. “You’re very early today.
Why did you switch that set off like
that?”

“Oh — well,” said Steve, wrig-
gling, “didn’t seem much point in
bothering with a dreary old flick.”

This wretched performance
hadn’t a chance even with Una, and
of course Mum could read him as if
he were a theatre poster. “Stop that
silly nonsense,” said Mum. “You
saw him, didn’t you?”

“Saw who?”

“You know very well who —
your Uncle Phil. Didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, I thought I did,”
said Steve carefully.

“Thought you did! You saw him
nearly as plain as you can see me,
didn’t you?”

“No — but I did see him.” Steve
was clearly embarrassed.

“Did he say anything — I mean,
to you?”

“Now, Mum, how could he — ”

“Stop that,” shouted Mum. “I’m
having no~more of that nonsense.
And just you tell your mother the
honest truth, Steve. Now — did he
say anything to you? And if so —
what?”

The youth swayed from side to
side and looked utterly miserable.
“He said I took two shillings of
his.”

The women gasped. “Now isn’t
that just like him?” cried Mum.
“And you never took two shillings
of his, did you?”

“Yes, I did,” Steve bellowed un-
happily, and then charged out, so
that he seemed to be pounding
down the stairs before they had
time to raise any protest. '

“Just what I thought,” said Mum
before going into her terrible grim
silence again. “It’ll get worse, like
I said.”

Sometimes it was nice when the
men came up from the shop like
boys out of school, hearty and bois-
terous; and then at other times it
wasn’t. This was one of the other
times. And unfortunately they had
decided that the idea of Uncle Phil
appearing on television programmes
was Humorous Topic Number One,
and roared round the place making
bad jokes about it. With her lips
almost folded away. Mum heard
them in the grimmest of silences.
Una caught George’s eye once or
twice, but there was no stopping
him. How much was the B.B.C.
paying Uncle Phil? Had he got his
Union card yet? Would they' be
starring him in a show soon? And
couldn’t Ma take a joke these days?

“We haven’t all got the same
sense of humour, George Fleming,”
she told him. “And now I’m going
out. I promised to go and see Mrs.
Pringle.”

Una looked dubious. It was the
first she had heard of any visit to
Mrs. Pringle, and Mum liked to
discuss her social engagements well
in advance. “Shall I come too?”
she asked nervously.

“No reason why you shouldn’t.

Una dear,” Mum replied grandly.
“We can leave these men to have a
nice evening of television. And I
hope they enjoy it.” And off she
went, with Una trailing behind.

A little later, when he had his
pipe going, Dad said to George:
“Well, that’s how they are, and
always will be, I expect. Moody.
One day they’re all for a television
set, must have it. Next day, just
because of some silly nonsense, won’t
look at it. Hello!” — this was to
Joyce, who came hurrying in —
“ where’ ve you been, girl?”

“Where d’you think?” cried
Joyce. “Working. No, I don’t want
anything to eat. I’ll have some-
thing in the Empire caffy. We’re
going there.”

“What’s the use of spending all
this money on a television set,” Dad
shouted as she ran upstairs, “if
you’re going to waste more money
at the Empire?”

She stopped long enough to shout
down: “You’ve not talked to Steve,
have, you?”

“No, haven’t seen him yet.”

“Well, I haVe,” she cried tri-
umphantly. And that was the last
of her.

Dad and George did not wait for
Ernest, for they knew he would be
late, this being his night for attend-
ing his Spanish class. (Nobody knew
Why he was learning Spanish; per-
haps it helped to keep him steady.)
So after clearing the table and doing
a bit of slapdash washing up (just to
show Mum), they moved luxuri-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

ously, in a cloud of tobacco smoke,
into the front room. They were, as
they knew, just in time for Tele^
vision Sports Magazine, a sensible
programme they could enjoy all
the better for not having a pack of
impatient bored women with them.

The first chap to be interviewed
for this Sports Magazine was a racing
cyclist, who could pedal like mad
but was no great shakes at being
interviewed, being a melancholy
youth apparently suffering from
adenoids. However, Dad and George
had a good laugh at him, legs and
all.

“And now for a chat with a
typical old sportsman,” said the
Sporting Interviewer, all cast-iron
geniality, “the sort of man who’s
been watching cricket and football
matches and other sporting events
for the last sixty years or so. Wel-
come to Teleyision, Mr. Porritt!”

Mr. Porritt, who came strolling
into the picture, was small, old,
bent. He carried his head to one
side. He had a long and rather
frayed nose, and an evil little eye.
And without any shadow of doubt
he was Uncle Phil.

“No,” cried Dad, “it can’t be.”

“Let’s hear what he says,” cried
George. “Then we’ll know for
certain.”

“Now, Mr. Porritt, you’ve been
watching sport for a good long
time, haven’t you?” said the Inter-
viewer.

“That’s right,” said Uncle Phil,
grinning and giving Dad and George

UNCLE PHIL ON TV

a wicked look. “Saw a lot o’ sport,
I did, right up to the time when I
had the bad luck to go and live at
Smallbridge, with a family by the
name of Grigson. That finished me
for sport — and for nearly every-
thing else.”

“How d’you mean?” shouted
Dad, jumping up.

“Shop-keeping people,” Uncle
Phil continued, “in a petty little
way — frightened o’ spending a
shilling or two — ”

“No, don’t turn him off,’’ shouted
George, almost going into a wrestling
match with his father-in-law. “Let’s
hear what he has to say.”

“If you think I’m going to sit
here listening to slurs and insults,”
Dad bellowed. “Take your hands
off me.”

“Listen — listen — look — look!”
And George succeeded in ^holding
Dad and keeping him quiet for a
few inoments.

“Yes, indeed,” Mr. Porritt was
saying, in rather a haw-haw voice,'
“the first Test match I ever at-
tended — dear me — this is going
back a long time — ”

“It’s not him now,” Dad gasped.
“Quite different.” Which was true,
for the Mr. Porritt they saw and
heard now was not at all like Uncle
Phil. After a moment or two. Dad
said quietly: “Now, never mind
Test matches, George. Turn it off.
We’ve got to have a talk about
this.” '

Even though the screen was dark
and silent, they both instinctively

moved away from it and sat down
by the fireplace. “Now then,
George,” Dad began, with great
solemnity, “we’ve got to get this
straight. Now did you or did you
not think that Mr. Porritt, when
he first started, was Uncle Phil?”

“I was almost certain he was,”
replied George, who had. lost his
usual self-confidence. “Last night.
I’ll admit, I thought it was some
B.B.C. chap who happened to look
a bit like him — ”

“Never mind about last night,”
said Dad hurriedly. “And did you or
did you not hear him talk about us
— very nasty of course — ?”

“I did,” said George, who began
to feel he was in a witness box.

“So did I,” said Dad, and then,
perhaps realising that this bald state-
ment was something of an anticli-
max, he raised his voice: “And it
don’t make sense. jCouldn’t happen.
Here’s a man who’s dead and
buried — ”

“I know, Dad, I know,” cried
George hastily. “And I agree — it
couldn’t happen — ”

“Yes, but it is happening — ”

“Not really,” said George, looking
very profound.

“How d’you mean — not really?'"^
cried Dad, nettled. “Saw and heard
for yourself, didn’t you?”

“If you ask me,” said George
slowly and weightily, “it’s like this.
Uncle Phil’s not in there, couldn’t
possibly be. He’s on our minds, in
our heads, so we just ^/V^^he’s there.
And of course,” he continued.

FANtASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

brisker now, “that’s what was the
matter with Una and Mum. They
kept seeing him last night, like they
said, and you can bet your boots they
saw and heard him — or thought
they did — today, before we came
up fronfi the shop. And I’ll tell you
another thing. Dad. Young Steve
dashed out again, before we were
back, didn’t Jie? And Joyce said
she’d talked to him.”

“You think they got mixed up in
it, do you?” '

“Young Steve was. I’ll bet you
anything. And whatever it was he
saw and heard, it sent him out sharp
and upset Mum and Una — see?”

T!)ad re-lit his pipe but performed
this familiar operation rather shak-
ily. His voice had a tremble in it
too. “This is a nice thing to happen
to decent respectable people. Can’t
amuse themselves quietly with a TV
set — hundred-and-twenty-pound
set-.too — without seeing a kind of
ghost — who starts insulting ’em.
Here, George, do you think all the
other people hear what he says?”

“No, of course they don’t. They
just hear Mr. Porritt.”

“But it isn’t Mr. Porritt all the
time.”

“I know — but I mean, whoever
it ought to be. Don’t you see,” and
George leant forward and tapped
Dad on the knee, “we only imagine
he’s there.”

This annoyed Dad. “But why
should I imagine he’s there? I’ll tell
you straight, George, I’d had more
than enough of Brother Phil when

he was alive, without any imagining.
All I wanted tonight was a Sports
Magazine — not any insults from
that miserable old sinner. I call this
downright blue misery.”

They were still arguing about it,
without taking another look at the
set, when Ernest came in. “Hello,”
he said, “aren’t we having any tele-
vision tonight?”

“No,” said Dad, and was about to
explain why when George gave him
a sharp nudge.

“Just having an argument about
something we heard on it earlier,”
said George. “You turn it on when-
ever you like, Ernest.”

Ernest said he would as soon as he
had put on his slippers and old coat,
which Wj^s something he always
made a point of doing when he came
home in the evening. And while
Ernest was outside, George ex-
plained to Dad why he had given
him that nudge. “Let’s see what
Ernest makes of it.”

“I don’t see Ernest imagining
anything,” said Dad. “If Ernest sees
Uncle Phil, then Uncle Phil’s there
all right.”

“Now then,” said Ernest, a few
minutes later, as he looked at the
Radio Times y “ — ah — yes — Cur-
rent Conference — a discussion pro-
gramme, I believe. That should be
interesting — and we’re just in time
for it.” He sounded like somebody,
the ideal stooge, taking part in a dull
programme.

When the set came to life, George
and Dad rather stealthily moved

UNCLE PHIL ON TV

nearer. Ernest had planked himself
dead in front of it, looking as if TV
had been invented specially for him.
The screen showed them some chaps
sitting round a table, looking pleased
with themselves. The room was im-
mediately filled with the sound of
their voices, loud and blustering in
argument. The camera moved around
the table, and sometimes went in for
a close-up. These politicians and ed-
itors seemed to be arguing about the
present ^tate of the British People,
about which they all apparently
knew a great deal. A shuffling at the
door made Dad turn round, and
then he saw that Mum and Una had
returned and were risking another
peep. They ignored him, so he pre-
tended he hadn’t seen them. Mean-
while, the experts on the British
People were all hard at it.

“And now. Dr. Harris,’^ cried the
Chairman, “you’ve a good deal of
specialised knowledge — and must
have been thinking hard — so what
have you to say?”

A new face appeared on the screen,
and it belonged to a head that was
held on one side and had a long nose
and the same old wicked look. Dr.
Harris nothing! It was the best view
of Uncle Phil they had had yet.

“What have I to say?” Uncle Phil
snarled. “Zombies. Country’s full o’
zombies now. Can’t call ’em any-
thing else. Don’t know whether
they’re alive or dead — and don’t
care. Zombies. And if you want an
example, just take Ernest Grigson of
Smallbridge — ”

) 99

“Stop it,” screamed Mum from
the doorway: “He gets worse every
time.”

George had the set switched off in
three and a half .seconds, probably
a record so far.

Ernest looked dazed. “I must have
dropped off,” he explained to them
all, “because I seemed to see Uncle
Phil and thought he mentioned my
name — ”

“And scL he did, you pie-can,”
roare^ , Dad. Then he turned to
George: “I suppose you’re going to
say now we all imagined >that to-
gether. Urrr!”

“It’s just his wicked devilment,”
cried Mum, coming in and joining
them now. “Is this his first go to-
night?”

“Not likely, Ma,” said George,
and explained what had happened to
the Sports Magazine,

“Personal slurs and insults every
time now,” said Dad bitterly.

“But wait a minute,” said Ernest,
looking more dazed than ever and
speaking very carefully. “Even if he
was alive, they wouldn’t have Uncle
Phil on that Current Conference pro-
gramme. I mean to say, they only
have — ”

“Oh — for goodness sake, Er-
nest!” cried Una. “What’s the use
of talking like that ? I’ll scream in a
minute.”

Mum looked severely at the men.
“Now you’ll perhaps believe me
when I tell you what happened when
Una and me turned it on earlier —
yes, and what happened to poor

100

Steve.” And they had to listen to a
very full account of Uncle Phil’s
earlier appearances. Just when it was
becoming unbearably complicated,
it was sharply interrupted.

A little procession of young peo-
ple marched into the room. Steve
had a youth his own age with him,
and Joyce, looking pale but deter-
mined, was accompanied by two
watery-eyed spluttering girl friends
and a scared-looking boy friend.

“We’ve beert talking,” said Joyce,
“and I’m going to turn that set on,
see for myself, and nobody’s going
to stop me.” Nobody did stop her.

They all looked and listened in
silence. A rather dolled-up woman
appeared on the screen, and was say-
ing: “Well, that’s one point of view.
And now for another. What do you
think, Inspector Ferguson?”

“Here we go,” muttered George.
“I’ll bet you a quid.”

There was a gasp from all the
Grigsons. This time Uncle Phil’s
horrible sharp face filled the whole
screen, and his voice, when it

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

came, was louder than ever before.

“Take the case of an elderly man
with heart disease,” said Uncle Phil.
“When an attack comes Qn, he has
to crush some pill things in his
mouth — or he’s a goner. And sup-
pose somebody — just a young niece
perhaps — deliberately puts those
life-savers out of his reach — so
when he has an attack he’ll finish
himself trying to get to them — it’s
a kind of murder — ”

“Not on purpose I didn’t — you
dirty lying old weasel!” Joyce
screamed, and then threw the stool
at the screen.

Next morning, Alf Stocks was
there, shaking his head at Mum. “No
use telling me it’s brand-new and
priced at a hundred-and-twenty.
Tube’s done in, see — that’s the
trouble. I’m taking a chance offering
you twenty-five for it. Yes, I dare
say it was an accident, but then some
accidents — ” and then, as Mum
said afterwards, he gave her a sharp,
sideways, old-fashioned look — “are
very expensive.”

Winner in the Arthur C. Clarke Title Contest

In our July issue we published an Arthur C. Clarke story and offered a $200 prize
to the reader who sent in the most apt and effective title for it. The response was
overwhelming, and F &SF’s editorial staff had a difficult time choosing the winner.
But after much consultation, the entry of Eleanor Nemovicher of New York City
was selected as the best. Our $200 check and our congratulations have already
gone to Eleanor Nemovicher — we would now like to offer our thanks to all you
readers who responded so well, and to wish each of you better luck next time.

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